New year, Old me, New lessons
You don't really hear people say 'new year new me' anymore, at least not seriously. Maybe that idea of rebirth every year has faded out in this constant self improvement 'grindset' everyone seems to be constantly going through.
I'm going through this myself, reading self help books and watching Youtube videos about the same topics hoping something will click someday.
Rebirth wouldn't be the word I'd choose for how I feel in 2026, but taking a break and thinking back lets me remember and clarify feelings and experiences I've ignored up until this point.
My most important lesson I've learned this year is:
It's Cool To Try
Putting an effort into things is so incredibly underrated. Going into reels or Youtube shorts and opening the comments section will put you face to face with people that only detract, people who live to take others down, but in real life could be nothing further from that.
One of my lessons this year is real life appreciates effort, even if what you can do isn't that good. My girlfriend really enjoys crocheting and keeps pestering me to try it, and with one of my girlfriend's friends birthdays coming up I decided to try it to hopefully make a present for her. Good god it was ugly, I made William the whimsical worm:
And if I posted this online, obviously I'd be torn to shreds, the stitches are uneven with some being so loose, bits of fluff from my girlfriend's old pillow is coming out. I was embarrassed to give this to someone because I'm not 5 years old but William the whimsical worm became a part of their house, he just hangs out on the sofa being whimsical.
From then I started trying, I put effort into my goofy halloween outfit, making a spider out of stuffing tights and stringing them up to look like I have 3 arms each side and the people loved it.
I put effort into my murder mystery night costume and ended up with an award for it! And I think the lesson here is even if you're bad at something, people still really value effort you put into them.
Touching grass!
My learning to try point had the crucial yet overlooked part of doing all of this outside! Away from my computer, away from the top 1% showing off their top 1% projects.
I'm not in the top 1% nor will I ever be in the top 1% at anything I do, and I'm fine with that, life has more to do with how well you do a blend of things.
But in order to become more well rounded, I have to get the hell off of my computer. I've spent the entire year on this fucking thing, which is why one of my goals this year is just to have one in real life friend.
I have my group of best friends online who I used to hang out with in real life but we all moved apart. Since then I've been trying to go to local places like my card shop for friday night magic or to programmer meetups to meet new people!
While I've met some really cool people here, they're just not people I'd hang out with in real life, so I'll try and find some more hobbies to meet people my age.
Another point to add to this is I've spent all of my career and adult life practising and learning how to program and making software, but all my work has just been around solving very theoretical problems or the classic 'creating shareholder value'.
Realising this, I want to do more in real life hobbies, I think I'll get my pet project into a good spot to take a break and try some arty hobbies. I just bought supplies to make my own candles which I'll make a post about how that goes later.
Even though this new website keeps me at my computer, it's an arty project which I'm excited to work on!
More memories
All through my life, I've been not taking any pictures or buying any fun little trinkets to decorate my apartment, I'm ashamed to say my house is the typical male living space :(
The reason I got to writing this was from 32 bit cafe's post here. And it came with a pixel art moth to colour in, so here it is:
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