Monday, January 5, 2015

2014 in review / 2015 resolutions

It will be hard to be non-bias on this one, because 2014 ended in a shit storm. So to try to remove bias, let’s look at my resolutions for this year.

The big resolution was to re-examine my life and where I want to go.  I did lots of questioning at the beginning of the year. I tried to apply to film jobs outside of the state.  To get anything in that field I had to show I had current experience, aka recent film jobs, which I had already been trying for for years, or I need to go back to college. And so came the question...did I want to try going to college while working full time? Unfortunately, nothing interested me enough to stress myself out to go to college, work full time, just to acquire more debt to get into jobs that wouldn’t pay much more and have no guarantee of being any less stressful. Film, writing, video… all jobs I would prefer, but I’ve gone down that road before, there is no promise it will work out, and experience has taught me that additional college experience isn’t really going to help. Programming or medical professions don’t really interest me. They might pay a bit more, but it’s not going to have an over-all positive net value in my life.

There are promising job opportunities opening within my job, and in Portland, in the future. I have, for better or worse, resigned myself to holding my breath until those come to fruition. It is hopeful that I start seeing that type of movement early in 2015.

My other major resolutions was to make a great, permanent change in my life. As discussed above, I still have my same job. I am still single. I am still petless. I am still not a serial killer (not that I’d admit that either). On the 31st, I was sitting in the same apartment. As of the 3rd of January, I did change residence and got new roommates, so it could be counted as a delayed success. But even that is minor, as I will be living only about 5 minutes away from my current location. Not really a scenery change. So my 2 major goals, figure out where to go in life and create a change in my life are both counted as fails in my books.

The rest of the goals were various forms of fails. Fitness was a big fail, but understandably so. And I didn’t even really do much more yoga outside of a month or two. My writing was focussed on D&D or my comic book, so enjoyable, but not career pursuing. I read more than the year before… which is saying like 3 books. Due to scheduling, I only went on a few other hashes. I did join a pay for dating website, so I got that experience under my belt… and it was regrettable. Definitely a loss of money. I apparently spent close to $1500 on alcohol last year (I didn’t count New Orleans, but I didn’t do much drinking then), most of it during the summer. I have no positive nor negative feelings towards that amount, I just wanted to know. While the fitness part is disappointing, the rest are all kind of “eh.”

Really, the only thing I did well was my goal #5, be more active for Halloween. While technically Halloween itself I did minimal, I did do the Great Horror Campout, and also had my New Orleans Halloween trip. I saw a ton of haunted houses, got lots of great scares, and a few mementos that will last. I passed this one with flying colors.

From the perspective of how many goals did I accomplish...this year was a disgrace. I really only accomplished one of my goals, two more that were gimmes, and neither had positive effects on my life. So much for trying the unbiased approach to 2014.

I don’t feel it was totally bad though. Again, goal #5 was very important to me. In fact, from the month of August through the majority of November, I was doing really well.  Great Horror Campout, New Orleans trip, I had an awesome partner in crime, and I felt in those months I really knew who my friends were and I was spending lots of time with them. I felt truly loved and happy during that time. It definitely helped that work was only minorly stressful during that period as well. I think the memories I made during August through November will outlast the negative memories of the year.

Another great thing is I changed my comic books formatting, and so far am getting very positive feedback. The followers of the page have grown immensely, and I feel like I’m getting good work done. I am looking forward to seeing it grow over the next year.

But since the middle of November until the end of year, life got really bad. Had to search for a new apartment which turned into a nightmare, work got extremely busy and filled with screamers and hate while while the hunt for new jobs became depressing, my health deteriorated, my partner and I split, and of course the normally expected stress caused by the Holidays. Due to all the stress, I became (and still am) very reclusive and introverted, so I’ve been seeing my friends a lot less. Christmas Eve 2014 has been put in the annals of time as one of the top 5 worst days of my life (I believe its #4, possibly #5), largely impart to work stress.

This year I am going to try to limit my resolutions and focus more on what did work. Of my resolutions, I only really cared about less than half of them. I’m going to focus my resolutions on things that will make me happier with life. I’m not depressed, but I’m not happy either. The past few years I haven’t had a “Happy” year. I’ve had happy moments throughout the past few years, but I wouldn’t say any of the recent ones have been over-all happy.

Resolution #1: Make another vacation that’s about me. One of my best times of 2014 was the New Orleans trip. While I have a few “vacations” planned for 2015, they are marriages, or large group gatherings. They will be fun, I will enjoy them, but they are about other people. They aren’t for me. The New Orleans trip was on a whole different level. With the extra vacation time I have now, I will want to make sure I do this again. While probably not New Orleans, we’ll look at other places I have never visited.

Resolution #2: A separate resolution dedicated just to Halloween. Maybe it can be mixed with Resolution #1, maybe not. Either way, focussing a lot on Halloween or other scares / haunts made me super happy. It is definitely a reason for my happiness from August through part of November. If I can salvage those months, than I’ll at least be able to smile on that period of time.

Resolution #3: This one might be a bit harder, but I’d like to move somewhere that will allow me to own a dog. I have always had a dog in my life, and not having one now just feels wrong. I would focus on my health running the dog, I’d have a buddy around me to keep me happy, and overall I think it would be a wise investment in my life. Unfortunately, this resolution may be partially out of my hands. It depends on my living situation, it depends on what opens up, and life may change for me financially as well.

Resolution #4: Find a way to be happy with my job. Switch jobs, change companies, go to therapy. Something. I have had this resolution multiple times. It’s important. I’ve been working on it for years, and so far nothing has really changed. I’m really hoping if I can accomplish the above three, then while this one won’t pass...I’ll at least feel better over-all. And that’s the goal. To feel happier about the year.

Fitness, reading, writing,art, and tattoos are all things important to me. But they are things that don’t need resolutions. When I suffer illness, or bad asthma, or whatever else that takes me away from doing them, having a resolution to do it just makes me feel like I’m further failing, and it doesn’t make me feel any better when I succeed. It’s a lose-whatever situation, and I don’t need to put myself into that.

So despite the stressful start, I’m hoping if I focus on these resolutions, I can make 2015 better.

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