2019 A Retrospective

With a new year upon us, I’ve been looking back on 2019. As well as, making some plans for what’s next.

The Big Picture

At the end of last year, I felt it was time to lock in and focus on finishing some projects I’ve started. Though I didn’t realize how much I still needed to just play around with whatever came to me. Thinking about this made me think about a lot of my path in life as a whole so far. Neither good nor bad, I feel that I’m still getting a grasp on the freedom I actually have.

There have been so many times in my life I’ve settled for what I saw as the default state. I went to the same high school as my brother, because that made sense. Ran cross country and track because he did too. I went to the one college I applied to, took the first job offer at the company I interned at, took a promotion at that company at the first chance.

Many of these decisions have brought me amazing friends, skills, and memories, but at the end of 2018, I finally took a step off that default path. Not happy in the promoted position, I decided to leave the company I was with for four years at that point and start over again. I’ve been happy with that decision so far.

The reason I started this blog was to try things I found interesting. It started with habits and routines, but I even tested with skills and hobbies. There have been a number of hobbies I’ve played around with that I haven’t fully shared here. Some have stuck, some turned out to be temporary interests, and others not as interesting as first thought.

Goals

This past year specifically, I made six goals across three categories: health, wealth, and wise.

Health

My goals in this category were to attain a new personal best in the marathon and go on two outdoor trips in the year. My old time was back from 2016 around 3:35, to be honest I don’t even really remember it. As training started, I was lucky to have a great group to train with in the harsh winter.

For my outdoor trips, I went on two short camping trips with friends. The first was over Memorial Day and was a chill camping experience. The other was a backpacking overnight. It was still within a campground but was fun carrying around everything until we found a site we were happy with. It had rained recently so we couldn’t start a fire, so we just talked in the dark.

Both trips involved going to breweries while in the areas we were, a coincidence? I think not.

Wealth

The name suggests financial concerns, but I used it for experiences and relationships. My goals here were to take an international trip and to have a weekly social event. The latter I wasn’t thrilled about as the year went on, but I still participated in a weekly event with friends or family, primarily facilitated by weekly trivia at a local bar.

The international trip was definitely one of the best experiences of the year. I went to London with a couple friends. The time we were there felt three times as long. Each day was full of differing activities from museums to a musical to a castle tour, there was certainly variety.

Wise

In this final category, I actually changed both goals mid-year. My goals at first were to read 26 books and to pass a Japanese proficiency test. At the end of 2018, I started learning Japanese through apps and online resources. Around the midpoint of the year, Japanese took a backseat to learning game development for a Game Jam I participated in during August.

With that, I made it a goal instead to participate in two different game jams. I took part in the one mentioned in August, the Game Maker’s Toolkit Game Jam, and the other was in December, the 2 Button Jam. You can check out the games I submitted in the links!

As for books, I became a better reader this year. I passed my original goal of 26 books by September, and in the end have finished 41. Some of these were comics, others were audiobooks, but the important part for me was starting and finishing books. I read some fiction, and plenty of non-fiction as well. I started putting a decent dent in my reading backlog, while finding new and interesting reads along the way. Following my brother on Good Reads was certainly helpful.

Next Year

With the year ahead, you can check out my new goals here. Trials start again tomorrow, in which I’ll start with using my standing “desk” during the work day. I’ll be kicking off the year a week earlier than I originally planned, but I’m just too excited to wait.