2023 and 2024
a year's worth of content in a single post... good luck
In the past, I haven’t been much for New Year’s Resolutions. In fact, I’ve been allergic to goals for a long time. There aren’t many things more disappointing than an unmet goal. It’s easy for me to feel like I’ve failed a goal - in fact, any time it isn’t met perfectly it feels like a failure. So, I’ve free-floated without concrete, written-down long term goals for the last several years.
My friend Marlena has a birthday tradition where she asks the Birthday Person a couple of Birthday Questions. I like these, as it gives me a way to look back and look forward, and go easy on myself while doing so. Nobody’s looking to hold me accountable for the next year. I adapted the Birthday Questions for my own New Year’s Reflection to memorialize this year’s events and set an intention for 2024.
What are some moments I want to remember from 2023?
Before I wrote this section, I scrolled through this year’s photos to jog my memory. It made me so grateful for the friends and family in my life that take photos while I hang out with them (because I almost always forget to…)
There are a number of moments I’m so appreciative of:
Going to Mallorca with Courtney’s parents in March
Spending more time with my dad in San Diego and back at home, doing random activities like bowling, VR rooms, and go-karts
Visiting my family in Boise and smashing lots of random objects (both in a rage room and at the driving range)
Seeing my nana and papa and getting to eat food with them
Hosting and planning Evan’s birthday and bachelor party
Having friends and my sweetie plan my own birthday!
Developing relationships with new friends, cultivating relationships with old friends
Celebrating the Christmas season with Courtney
Doing more random and spontaneous things with friends (usually involving Taco Bell or McDonald’s somehow…)
Eating so much good food (not usually involving Taco Bell or McDonald’s…)
I didn’t expect to find so many good one-off memories in my camera roll. Thank you to everybody who made this year special for me.
What are some things I’m proud of doing in 2023?
A couple of months ago, an old coworker of mine sent me a message to catch up. During our conversation, she asked me how long it took for me to start feeling confident at my job - I told her that I felt like I only just developed a baseline level of confidence at work after 6-7 years of being a software engineer. She was disappointed to hear that she might have to work for 4 or 5 more years before she begins to feel like she knows what she’s doing. I tried my best to encourage her that I don’t think there’s much she needs to do to get there, she will become a more experienced engineer simply by doing her job everyday.
Throughout the last several years, my growth at work has seemed to come from random periods of “waking up” - I feel like I’m being asked for months to be aware of things that I just don’t have the mental capacity to think of all the time. Then, suddenly, I “wake up” and I’m able to be aware of that thing without much effort. This transformation comes without me asking for it. It just shows up one day.
This year has felt a bit like “waking up” in my personal life. I feel that huge shifts have occurred inside of me without really meaning to. Mostly in the second half of this year. I noticed it came after a time of an intensely depressive mood that hung around for a couple of weeks during the summer.
During those weeks, I felt an overwhelming awareness at every moment. It felt like my brain’s muscle memory, my autopilot, took a nap and I was forced to choose everything consciously. Sometimes it felt like I was focusing on simply where to put my feet as I walked. I remember standing outside in the mornings, letting the sun hit my eyes and hoping it would clear away all the fog inside of me. My own heartbeat would keep me up at night, and I’d use the radio to distract me from the sound of blood moving through my arms and legs.
It’s not a surprise to me, now that I look back at my borrowing history at the library, that I started reading a slew of self-help books in July. I think this mood jarred me loose a little bit. It cracked me open and allowed me to see what was going on underneath. It helped me come to some deep realizations about what I needed.
Letting Go
In The Creative Act by Rick Rubin, he underscores the act of creation as an essence that flows through you. You can’t reach out and grab it. You can only open yourself to the flow, and allow yourself to be a conduit for it.
I’ve turned over this theme of a paradoxical relationship to your desires - posture instead of action - countless times in my mind. The things we desire are somehow aware of our anxiousness in chasing after them.
I see a bird in the park at a distance, and I might ask myself: what can I do to get as close as I can? If I move toward it, I’ll scare it off. It’s time to ask myself the question: why do I want to get close? Can I enjoy the bird from this distance today, and then see what distance it is from me tomorrow?
Also: are these new questions getting me closer to the bird? Or are they just helping me be satisfied from a distance?
I read through The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control by Katherine Morgan Schafler at the end of last year. It’s a vertical guide to several concepts in CBT that have been difficult for me to absorb in the past: self-compassion, self-worth, dichotomous / all-or-nothing thinking, control, and presence. Every chapter feels like it resounds with this theme of letting go. Reaching for something anxiously and with desperation strips away nearly every opportunity for satisfaction and fulfillment in the process of achieving that goal. This renders the goal pointless, as you feel just as empty when you achieve it as when you started.
Reflecting on this theme ended up with a train of thought that ended in letting go of more things:
By coming to grips with the fact that my job isn’t perfect, I can appreciate the aspects of it that are good enough.
By realizing that my job is good enough, I can relinquish my hobbies from the role of saving me from my full time job through secondary income.
By forgoing my pursuit of mastery and greatness in my hobbies in order to deserve to build a career from them, I can enjoy them more fully as a way of expressing myself and having fun.
Bowling and Substack
This year I’ve had the opportunity to develop new hobbies through this lens. Somehow I started to go bowling countless times. And somehow I have a blog.
I’ve had to stop myself from watching videos and reading guides about bowling, with the intent that it would be just fun for me. No goal to get better at it. My goal was to enjoy myself! And sometimes I didn’t do a very good job at that. When I’d go with friends or coworkers, they’d expect me to crush them since I have my own ball and shoes. I had to remind myself that I was just here to have fun. My competitive edge was difficult to quell in those moments.
I found fun by focusing on small things that were satisfying about bowling frame-to-frame, instead of looking at the final score of the game as a judgment on how I did. Maybe I picked up a spare that I didn’t expect. Or maybe I got a strike that felt particularly good. Or maybe I bowled consistently three frames in a row, where I had the same or similar spare pattern each time. Or maybe I bowled with people I enjoy being around, had a drink, and simply enjoyed passing time together.
I feared starting a Substack for the same reasons, and have asked myself countless times: why would anybody read what I’m writing? I didn’t want to start another project only to have it peter out. I forced myself to set aside the idea that I’d write something every week. And then I had to still force myself to set aside the idea that I’d write something every month. Or that I’d write a post with the same format every time. These were ideals that I wanted to achieve in order to create the “best” or “proper” blog. I decided to let go, and try to allow myself to write whatever I wanted to, whenever I wanted to. I didn’t set a plan for myself to write a post every week, even just for a couple of weeks, in order to say “I’m writing a blog”. I know that if I like writing, I will return to it. And if I don’t return to it, that doesn’t mean I’m lazy or bad at commitment. It may just mean I’m not interested in it, and that’s okay.
Video Game Development
I worked on two games this year! One was an official game jam for a week in February with a new friend of mine, Adam. And another was an unofficial game jam for a couple of weeks in October with a good friend, Tien. I used Godot, a new game engine that I hadn’t tried before and it was a breeze compared to Unity. Adam and I got 32nd out of 80 submissions during our game jam! Tien hadn’t done game development before, and we accomplished a lot in a short period of time, especially with this being her first experience. It was really fun to work with both of them.
What about 2024?
Diet
I’m going keto.
Just kidding.
I want to learn how to cook potatoes in more versatile ways. I think of them primarily in the roasty toasty category (hashbrowns, gratin, mashed potatoes, etc) and I think I sleep on the “cleaner” cooking techniques: steaming, boiling, sauteing. I love potatoes and I just don’t eat them enough!
In general, I want to inch another step closer to vegetarianism. Admittedly, not because of sustainability or climate or ethics. But simply because I’m tired of the mental tie of “fullness” or “satisfaction” to animal protein and processed grains. I want to be satiated by silken tofu and some roasted greens, damnit!
Downsizing
In a number of ways, the last couple of years has felt like a period of “expansion” of myself. Courtney and I have moved into our largest place yet, which has given us plenty of space to try new things (woodworking, raising chickens, gardening, more music gear, etc.). I’ve also put a lot of effort into socializing, meeting new people, going to new places, and generally expanding the number of people I know and spend time with.
I feel happy knowing that this period of expansion has now spurred me on to focus on things that I really want. This next year I want to pare down the number of things that I spend time doing, and spend more energy on things that are most important to me: making music, developing video games, my partnership with Courtney, and being outside!
Okay I’m done now bye
a lot of 👍 both in these photos and to this post
the king is back baby happy new year