It’s that time of the year again! Last year I made my first New Years post and I’m gonna do it again. But this time, I want to make some minor changes based on what I learned from last time.
I read a few interesting blog posts about New Years and goal setting over the course of 2024 that I want to borrow from this year.
First, there’s Do Quests not Goals, which suggests approaching goals as if they were quests. This isn’t a major change, but I like idea of “quest mentality” from the post. I’m interpreting it as choosing goals that are framed as a continuous journey, rather than a discrete binary of “achieved/not achieved”. I basically already did this last year by working on habits instead of goals, but I find that calling them quests is much more fun, and therefore, perhaps more motivating.
The other blog post I was inspired by is about the Japanese tradition of Kakizome. From my understanding, it’s similar to picking a theme you want to focus on for the year. While I do find that interesting and very poetic, that’s not the part of the article I want to borrow from. Since one of my issues with last year’s habits was forgetting them, I was inspired when the author mentioned posting their Kakizome on the wall by their front door, so that they see it every day. Unfortunately, my quests aren’t nearly as nice to look at as a calligraphy Kakizome, so I will not literally be hanging my quests on the wall (although that does conjure the image of a guild job board in a fantasy world). Instead, I will set this blog post as my browser home page, and as a backup, I have also set a reminder in my calendar to check my quest progress once a quarter.
I have selected the following set of harrowing quests to undertake in 2025. Most don’t really have an end-point, so I’m targeting incremental progress and self-discovery over measurable achievement.
When the presidential election results came in, I decided that I’ll have to personally do more to support my local community, since Donald Trump is likely not going to make our national support systems any better. I just want to do something to put a little more good I can see into the world; it’s far too easy to give up on being able to improve the world when all the news feels so distant and/or hopeless.
I’m still trying to figure out what exactly this will look like for me. I’m contemplating working with Code for America, since I have the skillset, but it may be (or at least feel?) more impactful to help at a local food bank.
I think this quest will be my most difficult one of the year, as it is the one most different from my usual activities.
This past Christmas, my grandpa gave me a set of calligraphy pens and some workbooks to teach me the basics of writing in calligraphy. My grandpa likes to use calligraphy when writing post cards, and I like receiving the post cards with calligraphy. I also like the utility of calligraphy as an art-form. One day, I’d like to be able to write my own post cards in calligraphy as well.
I will work through the workbooks to find a style of calligraphy that I like and can write without constantly referencing the guide (after sufficient practice).
Last year I felt confident I would make it onto an Ultimate Frisbee club team in Seattle. Little did I know how lofty of a goal that was. From what I knew, every city’s club scene has a range of competitiveness, from the top teams trying to win nationals, to the fun teams trying to play enjoyable games of Ultimate at the highest level they can. In some cities, to get onto these lower tier teams, all you have to do is show up. But not so in Seattle; apparently there is such an imbalance between the number of highly skilled players to teams in the area, even the the least competitive club teams are swamped with highly skilled players during tryout season.
I’m not a terrible player by any means, but last year’s tryouts proved I’m not good enough to walk onto a team without training. This year, I’m going to make another bid to make it onto a club team. I’ve been doing some physical conditioning already, but I need to increase my field time and level of play in the spring league to improve my disc skill.
But the big thing I want to change is how I approach club team tryouts, and playing with higher-level players in general. Last year, I already knew I had a lot to learn, but I was expecting to do that learning during practices after making it onto a team. This year, I will take more advantage of the tryouts themselves as learning opportunities.
Whether I make it onto a club team or not in 2025, I still want to improve as a player.
I had a similar quest in last year’s blog post, about being more intentional with time spent at home with my partner, but I wasn’t able to make as much change as I had hoped. I believe it’s because it takes 2 to spend time intentionally, and one or both of us were not always up for that.
So this time, I’m going to focus on what I can control directly, and work on how I personally can be a more attentive and engaging partner.
Now that I’ve gotten to know more of my extended friend network in Seattle, I’d like to push myself to make more events happen so that I can see them more often. I don’t necessarily need to organize anything complex, just something to have as an excuse to see others more often. I can’t continue to rely on others to always initiate the social activity I’d like to see.
Last year I succeeded in watching a lot of anime in the free time I was no longer using for watching YouTube. I do view this as an improvement, but I want to accomplish more with my time (and life) than keeping up with every vaguely interesting anime that comes out.
The biggest hurdle for me is starting something that takes more mental energy than watching videos, but once I get started, it’s not difficult for me to stay focused. I’ve already created a little tool to help me randomize my choice of activity, now I just need to build a habit around using it so that I don’t fall back to trolling Crunchyroll just to while my time away.
If things get too out of hand with anime, I can always add it to my TubeBouncer extension to set a hard limit on my viewing time.
I’m still having trouble sleeping. Last year’s experiment with going to sleep earlier was unsuccessful in getting me more sleep, but it was informative.
Going to bed early is a necessary first step in getting more sleep, but it was not enough on its own. Getting into bed early did not always correspond to going to sleep early, and even after successfully going to sleep early, I was not guaranteed more sleep; I often wake up even earlier to match how much earlier I went to bed.
My biggest problems seem to be getting to sleep in the first place, and then staying asleep. Both of these will require more scientific data gathering and, at this point, maybe even expert advice. But for now, I will start by experimenting with my sleeping conditions and recording the results.