Hello 2019

This is my first blog post, hooray!

2018 was a great year for me: I started university, got into playing music, making websites, scripting and I begun writing my first book. Entering university demands drastic changes, but I feel like I didn’t fully break out of some bad habits and I did not attempt to correct others, so much so that I can feel myself slowly sinking into a rut and I want to change that by changing myself.

New years day passed by so quickly and like every other year I didn’t set any resolutions, every year I tell myself that I should make a list of goals for the upcoming year and set them into place, but the cynical part of me always wins, I would tell myself that New years resolutions are meaningless or any other dumb excuse, eventually January first would arrive and I will swear to myself that I missed the deadline and that net year I will get it right and the cycle would continue for years and years.

Today I want to change this sort of mentality, I’m making the list here and now … Well not exactly, recently I have been listening to the Cortex Podcast by Relay media and I think CGP Grey hit it right on the nail with the concept of yearly themes, instead of drafting year resolutions and ending up forgetting them after a few weeks you would come up with non-specific themes to guide your decisions.

The problem with resolutions is that they replace everyday decision making, if your resolution is to go to the gym more often or to eat less junk food this resolution is an answer for your desire for a healthy lifestyle, but nobody will accomplish their dream just by dreaming itself, you need to set goals and then act, but your actions are guided by small desitions, yearly themes aim to provide guidance, instead of instant answers.

Themes should be holistic, for example one of the host of the podcast had a year of positivity, meaning that behind every mayor decision you must ask yourself Can I give this situation a positive spin?, on the podcast it is made clear on how themes should be non specific but at the same time remain big picture focused, you could have multiple themes per year. Listen to this episode for more information on yearly themes.

So my yearly themes for 2019 are: Responsibility , Wholesome & Change.

One obstacle that in my mind justifies avoiding responsibility is not having cut of points or deadlines, and the biggest manifestation of this is the internet, the web is home to endless streams of information, If for example I want to start a personal project I would then go to the web and get lost between countless browser tabs, the thing about the web is that’s harmful to me is that constant reminder that you could be learning more about any given topic, but reading into a topic turns into browsing youtube or reddit and now that I’m browsing it means I’m looking for nothing in particular and finding nothing of value.

Algorithms are too engaging and I could use one less burden to develop my responsibility faster, so in the spirit of the year of responsibility I will be opting out of algorithms and endless feeds altogether, this will be a slow process but in the end I want to quit addictive technology and embracing tech as a tool for productivity.

Instead of browsing reddit and reading a provocative comment and then writing a giant wall of text that nobody will read about a topic that nobody really cares about, instead of wasting my time like that I decided to start this blog in which I can fulfill my desire to write without engaging with addictive technologies.

So this one goes for a better year and a better me, a version of myself that can embrace change, abandon cynicism and live up to my responsibilities, this one goes for a better self, dear internet, happy 2019!