2016, the dooziest.

Year four of this personal inventory: I can dig it.

I look forward to this checklist. It’s my fourth. This year was quite a rollercoaster, but I’m personally on the up and out. It was a year marked by good friends, good food, new experiences, new creative outlets, and renewed vigor. Enjoy.

Personal Culture:

1. What is your favorite band? Point Point
2. What is the genre of music you listen to most? Electronic Dance Music: lots of weird bleeps and bloops
3. What is your favorite pastime? Quality television with Jane, a good book, or some creative time with a personal project on my computer.
4. How do you spend most of your free time? Getting sucked into a social media vortex. I’ve mostly phased out facebook, but twitter and youtube have re-emerged as leading time-wasters.
5. What is the most irksome thing in your day-to-day? Not having enough time to care for my self, my environment, my loved ones, and still have time to work on my future.
6. What do you admire? Consistency, dedication, and self-sacrifice
7. Where do you work? The University of Minnesota, as a Research Programmer for the College of Pharmacy
8. Is there anywhere you’d rather work? Where? Aerospace maybe? Or for a company at the forefront of tech rights.
9. What do you do at work? I program web applications for use in clinical studies.
10. What would you rather do? More. I like my work but I’m frequently vexed by my human limitations.

Stress:

1. What is your biggest source of stress? Time
2. What scares you most about the future? Time
3. Do you think more about your present, past, or future? Present, with an eye towards the future. I save nostalgia or regret for special occasions.
4. Do you actively combat your stressors, or keep your distance? I’ve been getting better and better at working against stressors.
5. Have you been successful in your life? By some metrics, but not others.
6. What is success? Hard to define, hence the somewhat cryptic answer to the last question. Happiness, kindness, and engagement are good measures. Productivity and accomplishment are, too.
7. Does it feel like you have good friends that are a large part of your life? Yes, absolutely!
8. Are there actually good friends that are a large part of your life? :)
9. Where did those friends, if any, come from? Some college friends, some highschool friends, and some new Minneapolis community members.
10. Do you worry about money? Why? Yes, but only that I am not being wise with what I have.

Happiness:

1. What is a hobby you would like to get in to? Maybe electronic music production? I know in the past I’ve answered “Paragliding,” and I still want to do that, but I think at one point I thought that the ecstasy of literal flight was easiest way to reconnect to a happier version of myself. I think I’m getting there — minus the wing.
2. What is one type of thing you would like to do more of? My own software work. I keep pushing my projects forward, slowly, slowly, but I want to be doing more.
3. Who holds the most sway over your happiness? Myself and the people I love.
4. What’s something that you’ve discovered to be enjoyable, recently? I think I’m discovering that fiddly hand hobbies like contact juggling and knot tying are an easy way to enjoyment.
5. Are you happier than the people around you on a daily basis? As happy, I’d say.
6. How much time do you spend actively engaged in an activity per day? 12 hours? I think the purpose of this question was to gauge how checked out I usually am. Most of my attention is spent on things that I care about, lately.
7. How much time do you spend with your mind wandering per day? 4 hours
8. On a scale from 1 to 10, ten being most positive, how positive are your wandering thoughts? 7
9. How often do you relax? Every day, for at least a while.
10. What separates relaxation from the rest of your time? The pursuit of one of my own projects, or the pursuit of nothing for nothing’s sake.

Movement:

1. Are you making progress towards your goals? Yes, but slowly.
2. Are you living where you want to be living? Certainly for now. Great people, plenty to do, lots of opportunity.
3. Do you often see the people you want to see? Frequently, though I’d love to see my family more.
4. Are you in a job that is along your career path? Oh, somewhere out along the path, I guess.
5. Have you made enough money to finance your goals? Eh.
6. Are your friends successful? Some are, some are still trying to find their place, just like me.
7. Are you a better person than you were before? I think so, or at least more at ease with the person I’m becoming.
8. Would your loved ones say that you are a better person than you were before? Not sure, with all those reference points.
9. Would your colleagues say that you are a good person? Good enough?
10. What is your end goal? Be content, leave a mark.

Silly things:

1. What’s your favorite toothpaste? The kind that might make my next dentist visit less painful, so maybe some prescription stuff.
2. How many pairs of pants do you own? ~10
3. Do you have any socks with holes in them? Probably one buried in there but my standards for socks have consistently been rising.
4. Do you have a roommate? If you count stunningly beautiful and smart life partners
5. What is your favorite soda? Reed’s Ginger Brew or Mezzo Mix
6. What is your favorite liquor? Gin
7. What do you read for fun? Nonfiction, generally.
8. What is your favorite video game? Haven’t been playing a lot, but anything I can play with my brother or sister.
9. What is your favorite T.V. show? Westworld was pretty great, Top Chef also consistently good
10. Are you on a diet? Trying to cut back on my sugar intake but I haven’t done anything drastic.

Well that’s it! Filled out the whole thing without looking at my past years, so gotta go do that now. The blank template is here if you want to do this yourself. Previous inventories: 2013, 2014, 2015.