Happy New Year!
This year I’m not having greens (for money) and black-eyed peas (for luck), which as a proper superstitious semi-Southerner is filling me with vague dread that the New Year is going to go awfully.
On the other hand, last year I had black-eyed peas and greens and I landed in the mental hospital twice. So maybe it works less well than I think.
My New Years Resolutions are as follows:
- Try to become kinder, more compassionate, more empathetic, more understanding. Remember that whole “people are complicated” and “you don’t know what’s going on in people’s lives” and “everyone is the hero of their own story” thing.
- At the same time, be better at expressing my needs. I have this whole complex where I Don’t Want To Be A Burden but then I end up sobbing on the bathroom floor or self-harming or suicidal or ending my relationships with people and all that’s way more burdensome than asking for what I need in the first place.
- If it is out of my control, I do not get to worry or beat myself up about it. Things that are out of my control: the past, the future, other people’s opinions. (Of course, I can still plan for things, but planning feels different/more empowering than worrying. Ugh, I keep using the word ‘empowering,’ it sucks.)
- Figure out how to manage my fucking panic attacks.
- Do empirical research! Don’t die. I’m sure empirical gender-related research is not as hard as it looks. …Right?
- Make enough money that I don’t starve to death or stiff my partners on the rent.
- Learn more things. I am an autodidact by nature and I really need to keep doing that. Specifically, I really want to learn more science, more math, and programming! XD
- Write fiction. I really, really, really miss fiction. I have a Giant List of all the stories I need to write; it’s about time I write them. Fanfic! Short stories! Novels that are basically thinly disguised fanfic!
What are your New Years’ Resolutions? Or, if you don’t do New Years, what are your goals in general?
I’ve decided to become the sort of person who creates things a lot, not just thinks about making them as I am now.
@Ozy:
My New-Years’ Resolutions are a lot like yours:
1). To be worthy of the trust of others; trust makes the world go ’round
2). To be more generous in thought and deed; if trust makes the world go ’round, then charity makes it livable; I will pursue this resolution by learning about ways I can give back, via donations and such; and by being less miserly with my resources (time, money, etc.)
3). To suspend judgment until context demands I do otherwise; here, the obvious analogy is traffic, wherein judgment depends on a variety of contextual variables
4). To be less mindful of the status quo and more open to new experiences; put another way, I need to maintain awareness of the fact that “acquired tastes” are simply tastes I like but haven’t discovered yet
5). To interrogate my existing habits of thought, and replace them as necessary. Here, I will strive to replace wrath, anger, anxiety, impatience, intemperance, and avarice with stillness
6). To learn how to say, “No.”
7). To act at the first opportunity with regard to something about which I feel anxious
8). To start exercising, on my own or otherwise, as my self-image is rooted in my capabilities rather than my appearance, exercise is vital to enhancing my capabilities and thereby my self-image.
Wish me luck. This is Srs Bizness for me. =)
I don’t really do new years, so my general goals for the forseeable future:
- Make a living
- Figure out what my own psychological needs actually are so I can start learning how to express them, and maybe even meet some of them.
- Figure out how to do basic maintenance of self and career while depressed
- Make some new friends, maybe
@Yiab:
For me, managing depression gets easier the more successes I have. For me, dealing with depression requires a combination of:
1). Learning new habits; this includes habits of domestic upkeep, habits of social interaction, and habits of thought (basically, learning how to think about the same old stuff in new ways)
2). Facilitation by, and dialogue with, a variety of trustworthy folk on a variety of issues: my parents; my godmother; my friends; and a counselor or two, although I found that the latter was not strictly necessary. Note that I didn’t burden any single one of them with all of my issues; I distributed the weight
3). The desire to improve (this is not to suggest that you don’t have it, but for me, recognizing that I wanted to do better and feel better was important)
Now, this is not necessarily emblematic of depression; it is my experience only. For example, some people need meds to deal with it, some people do not. I tried ‘em; I didn’t feel a thing.
Furthermore, my experience with depression is probably characterized by privilege: I had a wide variety of resources at my disposal, including time, money, and a willing support network; I wasn’t under significant economic pressure at the time; and, at the risk of playing Oppression Olympics, my experience was probably comparatively mild.
Consequently, your experience with depression will be, and probably is, very different from mine. Hopefully the details I provided will be useful. If, for example, you don’t have a support network at hand, perhaps it would be possible and/or beneficial to look for one. Or not — different contexts, different remedies.
1) Get other people’s drug problems out of my life.
2) Get me to a counsellor and start exploring my therapy options.
3) Broaden my social circle, with the idea in mind that arranging a second Awkward Army meetup in my city might be an excellent place to start.
4) Stop trying to rescue people for whom I am not responsible, and who need to learn how to save themselves anyway.
5) Start the novel.
My actual resolution list is fairly short, but I also have a few big goals to work towards throughout the year.
Resolutions:
- Actually FINISH (at least) one of my pet project comics, instead of just making character designs and rough plots, and then getting distracted by a new idea.
- Start really looking for a job that pays me enough to do more than just barely keep myself and girlfriend fed.
- Upgrade all my reptile equipment/enclosures.
Goals:
- Use that shiny new job and bigger paycheck to move out of crappy mother’s basement (free rent is nice, but soul-crushing).
- Use completed project to start generating interest in my art/comic work. Maybe get even shinier new job in art field.
- Maybe get married to girlfriend? (IL doesnt have proper same-sex marriage yet I think? but girlfriend is a pre-everything trans woman, which provides a nifty workaround lol)
1: Spend less time inside my own head and more time with actual people.
2: Don’t overthink so much.
3: Be more creative. Write more, blog more. Practice drawing and painting more.
Not to let the opinions of others bother me so much.
Maybe start that youtube vlog I’ve always wanted to.
Read more novels, biographies, fan fiction, comics anything really.
Stop saying sorry so much (my mum suggested that one)
Get out more.
Make a more concerted effort to keep in touch with people who I find interesting it occurs to me that I’ve let allot of opportunities slip through my fingers as a result of not being more sociable both online and off, I mean the worst people can do is tell me to piss off.
Be neater, be nicer
Have fun
My New Year’s Resolution will be the same as last year: 1600×900.
(Yeah it’s a Facebook meme…I have nothing original).
In seriousness, though, I tend not to make New Year’s resolutions because I generally end up putting so much pressure on myself to follow through, that I end up breaking them.
@griffykate – I was just thinking that we should arrange another Army meetup. Let’s make it happen!
Sorry for the thread hijack!
No worries, it’s what threads are for.
Hooray for the Awkward Army!
I have but one resolution, in the hopes that making only one will leave me with no excuse to break it: Therapy.
Although tangential goals include Keeping Blog Alive By Writing Consistently and Going Out To Meet People And Have Experiences Worth Writing About.
Hello! Reasonably frequent lurker, first-time commenter, etc., etc. For programming, I’d like to qualifiedly recommend Learn Code the Hard Way. Qualifiedly because I only found it recently and already know how to program, so I’m curious if it would work for someone new to the subject. (I mean, I like the way it’s set up, but I lack data.)
As far as I understand it, the Python one is the most complete, and I think Python’s a good first language anyway:
http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/
Writing, forgiving myself and not worrying.
BTW, “semi-southerner?”
“Ugh, I keep using the word ‘empowering,’ it sucks”
I nominate that we replace all instances of the word ‘empowering’ with ‘Badass.’
I never really make these because I’ve always tried to live in a state of permanent self-scrutiny, but there just so happened to be a bunch of shit that I recognised near the end of the year that needs fixing, plus a bunch of more goal-type stuff that I figure will be achieved this year.
Behaviour changes:
1) Having no social circle in a big city sucks! Socialise at least once every single week. If I can’t find anything to do, pick something hilariously shit on a meetup website.
2) Stop permanently deleting people from my life.
3) Trust people more.
Goals:
1) Get good enough at guitar to join a band.
2) Join a fucking band.
3) Maybe try singing even though I’ve told myself since forever that I can’t without ever trying.
4) Have a better new years than “playing Super Mario Brothers alone in a dark room, drunk and high, while a party filled with old people and children rages downstairs”
5) Program something that resembles a video game (THAT I DESIGNED) or I swear to god no masturbation for a year.