2018 Resolutions

Detailing the changes I’ll be making in 2018 to be better

This document is intended primarily as a tool for me to explicitly plan and decide on how I will make 2018 better than 2017. I’ve shared it just in case it inspires anyone else to make a change.

A Reflection on 2017

2017 was marked by a couple things, but I will most remember it for indulgence. Events like graduation, getting hired, and getting paid really enabled me to spend and live opulently.

As 2017 came to a close, I found myself wanting to be more, and to do more. I was comfortable with where I was, but uncomfortable with how I was growing. I realized that from September - December, once I had started work, I failed to meaningfully commit to or invest in any of my other meaningful passions. In retrospect, this stemmed from two things

  1. Time thrown into the Work Abyss
  2. Relaxation Time

The Work Abyss

When working on Salary, an hour (and more generally, time) becomes an abstract unit of measurement. Spending 7 hours vs. 12 hours at work becomes somewhat less important, as long as the work you’re expected to complete is completed. At Plaid we set our own goals are expected to meet our own goals. It took a bit of time for me to learn what was feasible…then a bit more time to learn what was reasonable…and then even more time to learn what was sustainable. In doing so, I found myself losing hours and nights to the work abyss — sometimes necessary, sometimes unnecessary.

Relaxation Time

More important than anything in the long run is health. Irresponsible time commitments in my personal and work life brought some unneeded stress into my world. My coping mechanism was, in my free time, to rebuke productivity. Twitter, Netflix, Crunchyroll, Youtube…taking 2.5 hours to fold clothes were all culprits. Self care is important, but how I practiced self care was a bit inconsistent with my internal desires. A lot can be gained from creating content rather than just consuming it.

Big Theme of 2018: Discipline

In 2018 I’m gonna work on my discipline. I’ve eschewed minor and major, internal and external responsibilities, knowing they can be handled later, or just preferring not to face them. Often times, I misappropriate self-care or work as the excuses for avoiding obligations or applying myself to my passions. The change here is to make a conscious effort to address this shortcoming and resume building myself.

Physical Discipline

The surgery set me back quite a bit. I was inactive for nearly 12 months, and have avoided continuing and completed rehab for the last quarter of the month. In addition to that, I have yet to find a dentist, have not taken up Yoga as much as I should, and still maintain poor eating habits.

Deliverables

  • Attitude Adjustment: Long term physical health is an immediate priority
  • Rehab
    • Start Rehab in January
    • Consistently attend rehab for all of Q1, and Q2 if necessary
  • Stretch and Foam Roll Daily ~10 minutes
  • Attend Yoga once a week
  • Build healthy habits, so that this becomes natural and low effort

Emotional Discipline

Since high-school, I have developed a habit of being reliant on validation from women to be in a positive emotional state. This leads to a toxic pattern, especially since the emotional dependencies develop into sexual ones.

Recently, I have been extremely unsatisfied with solitude and wasted much time and effort seeking people to be around. Rather than viewing this as a personal need, I want to approach this as an opportunity to grow my comfort with solitude and use the time to personally develop

Deliverables

  • Attitude Adjustment: Being alone is an opportunity to grow and pursue passions, not an opportunity to drink moscato and tweet
  • Use alone time to pursue and develop passions — to create

Mental Discipline

This is a big one. After graduating from school, I went ahead and interned in a research lab to gauge how I would feel about pursuing a PhD. I enjoyed the lifestyle and long to contribute in meaningful ways. Thus, I have determined that I’ll pursue such a degree and take on that challenge. I postponed most of the application process and preparedness in 2017, to 2018. Things that I did not postpone I half-assed (shout out to my GRE) and did poorly. Now is the time to move forward on this. From a larger perspective, I need to become accustomed to the growth pains of learning outside of school. I haven’t done the best with this, and I figure the best way to tackle it is to Nike-Just-Do-It.

Deliverables

  • Create Grad School Roadmap
    • Papers
      • Read 2 Papers a month
      • Implement and/or experiment with one of these papers each month
  • Build Grad School Portfolio
  • Find Specific Subfields I’m Passionate About
  • Give earnest effort at GRE
  • Read one book a month

Creative Discipline

I made a decent amount of music in 2017. However, few efforts produced polished work. Polished work tended to be something I avoided. The objective here is to make a concerned effort to improve how and what I create, rather than only creating for the sake of it (which definitely has it’s place). The goal is to find a balance.

Deliverables

  • Attitude Adjustment: Sweat the Details
  • Attitude Adjustment: Invest in Passion
  • Productionize 4 songs
  • Produce one (1) software/AI project or experiment by June

I tend to let things like this slide and fall to the wayside (they were a bit of an afterthought even when constructing this document). As I grow older, this will become a terrible habit and lead to some super yikes moments. Parking tickets, Taxes, etc.

Deliverables

  • Pay my parking ticket
  • Finish my taxes in February or March, not in April

Consumption Discipline

Over the past few years I’ve come to spend money a lot more loosely. Spending money is a way to save time and effort, but what’s lost is a personal discipline to maintain and improve the things you already own. I’ve gotten to a point where I’ve invested a lot in personal belongings — it’s time to make the most of them, even if they’re currently in a subpar state.

Deliverables

  • Attitude Adjustment: How can I repurpose or improve what I already have?
  • Clean my shoes!
  • Cook twice a month
  • Improve as a bike technician