A Yearly Reflection
The beginning of a year is always a time of reflection and introspection. It’s why so many people, myself included, make some form of New Year’s resolutions, dedicated to living a healthier life, reconnecting with old hobbies, or otherwise. More often than not, those resolutions are never met. At the risk of sounding like a defeatist, it does seem silly and nonsensical to repeat this cycle year after year.
That said, this moment of introspection is nevertheless valuable to me; the exercise of setting goals sparks, at a minimum, some improved self-awareness. If the goal happens to be met, all the better. So, without further ado, I’ll begin the familiar song and dance, looking back on the year past and discussing what I hope the year forward brings.
Looking Back
By and large, 2022 was a great year both personally and professionally.
Professionally, I marked my five year anniversary at Etegent, becoming more involved in additional contracts as well as taking on my first formal supervisory role with a co-op student.
Personally, there were several highlights for the year:
- I built my first custom gaming computer, sporting a Ryzen 5800X and NVIDIA 3070 in an ITX chassis.
- I enjoyed several vacations traveling around the US – the most I’ve ever taken in a single year.
- My girlfriend and I spent our first full year with our black labrador retriever Rudi, enjoying his chaotic and cuddly energy in our apartment.
- With COVID restrictions essentially gone around the US, I was able to enjoy seeing Twenty One Pilots perform in Cincinnati, my first-ever concert.
Travel
Travel certainly was the highlight of the year for me, and it all began with a trip to New York City with my girlfriend, Roxanne. We made the trip towards the end of March, with the primary purpose of visiting my brother – he’d moved there from Ohio in the summer of 2021. We did see him plenty – enjoying Hadestown on Broadway and live ragtime music starring Terry Waldo, as well as several fantastic meals.
But beyond visiting my brother, it was also my first time in the city. We enjoyed the typical tourist fare, visiting various museums – MoMA really is a standout – as well as the 9/11 Memorial, Chelsea Market, Levain Bakery and so on. The only notable omission I can think of was missing the Statue of Liberty; I’ll see her next time.
The next venture happened a few months later. I traveled with my girlfriend’s family on their yearly lakeside vacation, this time to Lake Guntersville in northern Alabama. It was a fine trip, slightly sullied by the relative scarcity of clear sunny weather over the week, but I’ll never complain about being on or beside the water.
The real highlight of the trip for me, though, was making an excursion to Mammoth Cave National Park with Roxanne on our way home. One of my life’s goals is to visit as many national parks as I can, and this one was new to me. We took a guided cave tour – I believe we chose the “Domes & Dripstones Tour” – that began with a several hundred step descent, and concluded with a beautiful dripstone area called the “Frozen Niagara.” I expected to be somewhat claustrophobic in the caves, but really it was too enchanting – and exhausting – to really worry about that. If you’re not afraid of stairs, and can manage squeezing through some (quite accommodating) gaps, I’d certainly recommend it.
At the end of August, my girlfriend and I went on our third trip together, this time to New Orleans, another new destination to me. She was invited there by her company for a conference, so I was able to explore the city some on my own. I like museums, and the National WWII Museum did not disappoint; it is expansive. It seemed to assume some foundational knowledge, so those of us who actually enjoyed history class in school might get a bit more from the experience, but anyone could get lost in there for several hours.
While I was together with Roxanne, we took a couple city tours to see the architecture and learn a bit of the rich history of the area. I’d visit again just for the food; a relatively new restaurant, Barrone Bistro, was particularly good, and of course the beignets around the city were perfect little treats.
Our final trip of the year (accompanied by my family) was to Mount Desert Island, Maine, home of Acadia National Park and the charming tourist town of Bar Harbor. As I said in my earlier post, it really is one of my favorite places on Earth. I was so glad to take Roxanne on her first trip there.
Rudi
Roxanne and I adopted Rudi from the Cincinnati Lab Rescue in October of 2021, and 2022 marked our first full year with him, really getting comfortable with each other. Like any pet, he can sometimes be a bit of a chore to take care of, but he has been such an uplifting part of our lives. He’s always so happy and he loves to cuddle, perfect for a pair of introverts who love to stay at home on the couch.
Looking Forward
Looking back, I realize that every year, traveling is always the highlight. Thinking about why that is, for me I think it’s about more than just exploring new places. When I’m traveling, I’m more physically active. I’m more engaged in my hobbies. I’m nourishing my mind by reading books more and scrolling through Reddit less. Vacations make the perfect escapes from everyday life, but they also highlight the things we ought to just do every day.
Given that realization, I’m beginning 2023 with these goals:
- Be more active. In a more measurable sense, I’m aiming to get to the gym ~5 times a week, and to make sure that I’m closing my rings (the activity rings on my Apple Watch, that is) even on the days I don’t.
- Eat better. Being more active will feel better if I weighed less. It’s easier and more pleasant to move around if you’re carrying less weight. I’ve experienced it before. And the biggest part of losing weight is improving your diet. I’ve already talked about some of the tools I’m using to motivate myself towards this goal in a previous post.
- Pursue my hobbies. My primary focus in this regard will be engaging more with my photography. Typically, I only really get my camera out on vacation, and it consumes my trip; I love capturing my surroundings, especially the wildlife I see. It’s easier to feel inspired in a new place, but southwest Ohio isn’t lacking in natural beauty and wildlife. I just need to get out to see it more often.
- Pivot to reading instead of scrolling. Social media is certainly addictive, but few would call it fulfilling to scroll through for hours. For me, Reddit and TikTok have certainly been a vice. Instead of scrolling through posts mindlessly, I’d like to engage my mind a bit more by reading books or legitimate news articles / magazines. I’ve set “Screen Time” limits on my devices to lock me out of Reddit and Tik Tok after a set amount of daily usage, and I’m going to replace that time by reading books like The Lord of the Rings or magazines like National Geographic.
For those of you with Apple devices, I can’t recommend the Streaks app enough for keeping track of goals. It’s very flexible and helpful – it tracks my health goals automatically by looking at the data I’m already tracking via other apps through Apple Health. And the user interface is delightfully simple at a glance, while offering the statistics and control you want in just a few taps.
This year, I do genuinely feel more motivated and hopeful about my goals than I can remember ever feeling in the past. Let’s see if this is the year my defeatist skepticism is proven wrong.