2014+2015

This time last year, I said that 2013 was my best year ever. One of the biggest lessons I learned in Utah post-college was that success/happiness are cyclical. Life will have its ups and downs, and when you are no longer tied to a school year that means you might have a good 3 months, or 6 months, or year, or a bad 6 months, or year.

2014 was a good year, but it didn’t continue the tradition of best year ever. I made some great progress professionally, getting a role change to the lead for my team in May and an actual promotion/salary to go along with it in October.

Along with the increased responsibilities, I struggled managing my time. I felt like I’ve worked a lot this year. I don’t know if it’s more than I wanted to. I really enjoy my job and the people I work with, and on a day-to-day basis I don’t feel like I’m working too much, but I had a hard time remembering what all I did this year that wasn’t work related.

In February, I went to Sri Lanka with Daisy Office Yoga on a yoga retreat/service trip. We were in country for 8 days, and it was awesome. I made some great friends with the others on the trip, and it was nice to do some service-work again helping fix up the playground and school at a monastery in Unawatuna.

In August, I went back to Colorado for my ten year high school reunion (!) and then on to Idaho to see two of my best friends get married in one of the loveliest weddings I’ve been to. Congratulations Kyle and Larkin!

I managed to do some other travel this year, including a few trips to the Bay Area for work, a trip to Banff for Thanksgiving with my family, several trips to DC to visit friends, and another trip to Colorado to see my mom for Christmas.

My social circle also changed this year. I reconnected with a few people from previous points in my life, some friends have moved to NYC, and I’ve met new people as I’ve gotten more adjusted to my life here. I also lost some friends, some due to actions on my part and some just drifting apart.

Overall, 2014 was a pretty good year. It went by a lot quicker than I expected. I feel really good about the professional progress I’ve made, I’ve reached a point for the first time in my life where the next step isn’t very clear and I’m not sure what to do next. I’ve made some great friends, but also discovered some sides of myself in certain social situations that I don’t like. This year has been an interesting transitional year, and I’m in a good position for growth in 2015.

Resolutions from 2014

Let’s see how I did.

Read a book.

Mission complete! My goal of reading one book was largely attempted at an incremental improvement over the year before, where I read zero books. This year, I read four books:

• The Hunger Games
• The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
• The Hunger Games: Mockingjay
• Devil in the White City

After the last Hunger Games movie, I couldn’t really handle the cliffhanger and thus decided to resolve my curiosity and read the books. They were overall good, my issue was Katniss is a girl who is kind of petulant, self-centered, and doesn’t know what she wants (all of which makes sense because she’s 16 or whatever, and we’re all that way).

Devil in the White City was something I’d been meaning to read for a while on the recommendation of my mom/sister. It was an interesting story, and a great look into how ridiculous the Chicago World’s Fair was. I’m not particularly a fan of Erik Larson’s writing style — it feels very much “this happened, then this happened, then this other thing happened, then you won’t believe what happened after that”. Given that he was filling in a lot of historical blanks, I feel like he could’ve somewhat better constructed a story, rather than simply retelling.

Clear my game backlog.

Not even close. This was an ambitious goal, as there are probably somewhere around 50 games I own and haven’t played. However, I did get through some awesome games this year. Mass Effect 3, Assassin’s Creed 3 and 4 (4 being incredibly better than the very mediocre 3), some of the Call of Duty games, and a boatload of Destiny.

The ones I didn’t get to, and first on my list for 2015, are:

• Telltale’s Walking Dead series
• The Last of Us
• Alan Wake
• Bioshock: Infinite
• GTA4 The Lost and the Damned and Ballad of Gay Tony

The first four on that list have some incredible storytelling, so very much looking forward to getting into them.

Start and continue a regular workout routine.

Again, not even close. I did a decent job of running the summer (more on that below), but I still struggle to get a schedule together. Part of it is I don’t have a gym membership, but the larger part is I’ve lost some of the discipline I used to have about making the time for these sorts of things. I’ve noticed by body changing as a result in a direction I don’t particularly like, so trying to find external incentives to help me out this next year is going to be key.

Some Statistics

I earned 982,953 Nike Fuel (down from 1,036,167 last year) and hit my goal 153 times (down from 230 times in 2013). I ran 110.5 miles (down from 155 in 2013), with an average pace of 8’03”/mi (same as last year).

5 Most Viewed Posts

1. Cards Against Humanity Lab
2. Blending Lists of Lists
3. Happy Valentine’s from Chris Traeger
4. New Polaroid Factory Jacket
5. A railway encircles Chicago

My tumblr got 1,176 visitors (1,846 unique) with 1,862 pageviews (down from 3,305 for 2013). I made 292 posts (down from 812 posts). I haven’t been blogging/posting nearly as much this year.

Top 3 Top Gun Thursday Posts

1. Kicking off TGT with the ultimate high five
2. Speeding through round two of TGT
3. A steamy round three of TGT

Music Stats

I listened to a lot of St. Lucia this year, continuing the trend from 2013.

Resolutions for 2015

• Read more books than last year.
• Make progress on my game backlog (particularly the ones mentioned above).
• Join a gym and develop a regular workout routine.
• Complete my “to-do” list on Foursquare for NYC.

Here’s to 2015.

Originally published at optimuscline.com.