vision for the future
…God I love this picture.
The Year of Shedding
Much of 2019 went away in ridding myself of behaviors and assumptions that kept me from growing and living happily. Having my first serious relationship, enrolling in two personal development seminars, living alone, starting this newsletter, and joining a new team at work have all taken significant energy from me to manage. In the process, I noticed some of my patterns and am working on transforming them. Before I get into that, here are some new things I want to talk about.
New Year = New Newsletter.
What’s new:
Windblown —> Only Child. It felt more authentic. I chose “Windblown” and its description arbitrarily with the intention of changing it later. Welp, the time has come now.
Green color scheme. Green, to me, is growth, humility, creativity, and life. It makes me want to enjoy warm music and lay down in the wrong position on a living room couch. I hope to bring some of that energy here.
Twitter. I dusted off my old Twitter handle, @churrthing, and connected it to this newsletter. Here’s an exclusive peek at the flashes of insight and razor-sharp wit that my online persona will periodically dole out:
New Year = New Perspectives.
Language largely controls how we view the world. It’s the most sensitive system that humankind knows because it tries to control the packaging and export of ideas, whose contents can then change depending on differences between sender and recipient. Language tries to make objective those elements of our inner worlds that are ultimately ours and cannot always be expressed with words (hence music, paintings, and prank shows). In searching for the right words, we may choose the wrong one and communicate intentions that we never meant.
We don’t have to sit idly by, though; we can change our diction very easily. We can choose our words carefully, omitting those that we don’t want, and watch as our own attitudes change. In the spirit of the new year, here are some lukewarm phrases I want to drag to the chopping block:
Kill two birds with one stone*. Achieve two aims at once.
Efficiency doesn’t need to be founded on animal cruelty, no matter how easy it is. Seriously, it is so easy to invent subpar sayings that involve abusing animals and give the appearance of rural wisdom that I see no purpose in keeping them. I could tell my friends that “well, if you wanna keep your family happy, you have to neuter the dog” after rejecting their restaurant suggestions and pushing for my own, and besides the initial confusion with the new idiom, they’ll probably get the point. Which is that I’m a selfish scumbag whose future wife should settle for a goldfish.
Honorable mentions: “beating a dead horse” and “there’s more than one way to skin a cat.”Rule of Thumb. Standard by which to operate.
Supposedly, this referred to the maximum width of a stick that you could use to lawfully beat your wife in Olde England. This explanation has been disputed as possibly a rumor, but the metaphor itself is so dead that investigating the controversy feels obsessive and a little silly.X is my Spirit Animal. I relate to X.
Of course, there’s the aspect that spirit animals are actually important to certain cultures, traditions, and people, and then there’s also that this expression is so meaningless, bland, uninspired, tacky, etc. that I cannot forgive anyone over sixteen for using it. Although…maybe I need to think more about why I hate this expression so irrationally.<It all> boils down to <this>. The essence of the situation is this.
How the image of crusty solute forming at the bottom of a boiling pot inspired a people so deeply, I may never understand. However, in honor of that inspiration, I propose that scientists produce a new chemistry-related idiom once every five years so us laymen know that they’re not dilly-dallying with their research.Break a leg! Good luck.
This is why I don’t like mixing superstition with double negatives—it ends up crippling my peers.
New Year = New Me.
Anyways, I’ve looked back on the Year of Shedding and noticed my own patterns and learnings.
Reflections
I often confuse my idea of myself with who I actually am. Since I enjoy reading and writing so much, I developed an idea of myself as a SensitiveHumanitiesGuy™. It got in the way of my job as a software engineer, where, whenever I hit a snag, I internally pouted that of course this would happen, I like writing, not logic, duh, what did I expect??? And then the sense of resignation. It’s funny to me now, this idea that I’m stuck with the qualities I see in myself, like they’re genetically programmed and are not allowed to contradict each other. I felt trapped by my identity, but we’re so much bigger than that.
There truly is so much joy in giving rather than receiving. Giving someone you care about a simple gift will cure your loneliness. I can promise you this.
I’m learning the difference between needing alone time to recharge and escaping from my problems.
I need to take more chances. In my heart, I love change, but I’m more and more afraid of taking risks. Here I am now, gathering moss. The Year of Shedding has meant changing myself inside, and I want to use this newfound stability to catapult myself into the life I want.
Resolutions
Be proactive about my relationships. I’ve avoided social media for at least two years now (until my recent Twitter activity) and have used that, proximity from close friends, and my supposed “weirdness” as excuses to isolate myself from people. By no means am I antisocial, but I am passive about socializing. My own parents have settled into a mundane routine with an empty house and few friends, and I don’t want that. I need to work at my relationships right now so I’ll have a strong community later on.
Develop a keener sense of my own priorities. Avoid overcommitting to that which doesn’t matter as much to me, and make room for that which brings joy. I’ve spent enough time this year spreading myself too thin and scratching my head at the subsequent exhaustion.
Use my body more. Work out, play sports, move often. It’s so important to physically feel good (and looking good is an added bonus). Stretch for fun, take more hip-hop dance classes, learn a martial art—welcoming all suggestions°!
Publish a new blog post once a week. I feel scared when I want to put myself out there. All possible criticisms suddenly feel so real before I hit publish, and maybe even scarier is the prospect of hearing nothing back from anybody. But radio silence from readers isn’t necessarily bad, and within those criticisms is an opportunity to grow. There’s no need to give up. I love writing, I love getting better at it, and I love you for reading this. Your support means so much to me.
Have a fantastic New Year. I wish you all the best,
Chuckry