kortheo

Day 111 I had a realization this morning: I am terrified of criticism. I think this was the root of why I used to lurk so much, online and in life. I overcame a certain degree of that when I started posting here, and I'm learning to be more vulnerable, but I still run into this fear in significant ways. Yesterday, I encountered this in two ways. One, I wrote a blog post. I linked it here temporarily but deleted the post because I felt self-conscious about sharing it. I think it's because the post was critical in nature, and whenever I'm critical of anyone I always expect people to be critical back at me, even when I'm doing it in a civil and hopefully constructive way. I think I'm far too cautious to actually be offensive, ha. Two, I spent time with a friend and suggested a specific TV show we could watch. We watched one episode but he didn't really care for it. He thought it was over-dramatic and overwrought, so we watched something else. That situation made me feel kind of mortified because ... I don't, I guess I felt embarrassed to suggest something I had watched in the past and remembered being good, and then to have him not like it... I guess the worry is that he'd think I'm weird/lame because I like something he thinks is bad. Mind you, this is one of my oldest and closest friends. I've known the guy since 1st grade. Rationally, I don't think one TV show is going to affect our relationship. Emotionally, I feel very vulnerable. I guess it sort of feels like I have to be flawless in my relationships with others. Like if I rub them the wrong way in the slightest, everything will fall apart. I'd like anyone's thoughts on this... where does this come from? How do I work on it? Anyone relevant advice would be awesome. Currently Reading Self-improvement: Getting Things DoneNon-Fiction: This Will Make You SmarterFiction: The Name of the WindGratitudeBeing vulnerable in this post.Tame Impala. (the lyric "the only one that's judging you is yourself" just came out of my speakers hahah)Fleece blanket I got for Christmas.Black Mirror.Coffee shops.

Very cool, I was looking for a book on writing actually. I've heard On Writing is quite good.

Hey Ed, that's awesome that you are deciding to go to University. Math was never my forte either, so I feel your pain. The flash cards seem like a cool idea though. Best of luck with your studies, and hope you get back to writing more soon.

Hey gank, I identify with a lot of things you're talking about here. I was in a relationship with a girl with ADHD for 2 years, so I totally get where you're coming from. She suffered from insomnia too, and no joke I also went through a period of blaming her for my own failures just like you. There are certain patterns that happen in ADHD relationships - there are good books on the subject if you're interested. For me I think I felt like I had to compensate for her weaknesses and help her out, and eventually that leads to resentment... so you start to blame them for the things that aren't working in your life. It's not fair to either of you, but emotions aren't rational. It can be a tough place to be in. With regards to messiness and chores, I'm actually having a declutter day today. It's probably overkill right now for you, but I've been reading Getting Things Done, which is all about productivity and using time effectively. It's really aimed for business, but the principles can be applied everywhere in life. Point being, there are probably mindset changes you could work on to accomplish the things that you want to.

Day 110 I had a wonderful post written up but the forum decided to go down right when I wanted to post it... so it got lost. I'll rewrite it a bit abridged. To be honest, I haven't been feeling that great lately. I've been feeling socially anxious, awkward around coworkers, not as confident, lethargic, etc. I've felt like my posts here have been lame and uninteresting. I have a cold, but that's not the only culprit. The most likely explanation is that I haven't been good about my morning habits... particularly exercise and meditation. I haven't really done that for a week. I definitely notice the difference. Also I've allowed my apartment to get cluttered and messy. On an episode of Mating Grounds, they talk to this guy Joe about his living space, which is all messy, trash on the floor, no great furniture. He insists that he just hasn't had time to clean or get furniture, despite living their for several months. The hosts insist that what space in which you live is a choice... he had a choice to either clean up the trash or let it sit there, and he chose to let it sit. On an unconscious level, this reflects that you think you deserve to live in whatever environment your in; otherwise, why wouldn't you fix it? Anyway, this is just to say I suppose that when I feel worse about myself, my apartment starts to get messy, and vice versa. I did force myself to get up and exercise and meditate this morning. And it feels good. And there are other good things too... I have been really good about cooking this week, as opposed to eating out a ton, which I normally do. I'm getting better at it. One last piece of good news. I've been waiting for months for this new brewery/gastropub to open up. It's literally a 5 minute walk for me. Finally, it's open! I had discussed the possibility of getting together with some old friends from a reddit meetup group and go hangout there. The group used to hangout a couple times a week, but it's been basically dead for a year or so. Well, I made an event for the group and invited everyone (300 people in the fb group). As of this now there's 5 confirmed and 15 "interested". I've never done this before - I've never organized an event or really displayed much leadership anywhere. So it's new to me. I'm really hoping it goes well and that everyone has a good time, and that it becomes a regular thing. It occurs to me that I could have done this at any time at another location; I don't really know why I waited for this specific one. But regardless, maybe this will be the start of something cool. This post is actually a lot more positive than the one I wrote earlier, the one that got lost. Since then I got up and did a few productive things. I think the exercise and meditation really helped, too. When I do things that are in alignment with the ideal version of myself, I feel good. When I am lazy or fail to do those positive things that I want for myself, I feel bad, ashamed, and feel less confident. Food for thought. Currently Reading Self-improvement: Getting Things DoneNon-Fiction: This Will Make You SmarterFiction: The Name of the WindGratitudeThat Best Buy does e-waste recycling (convenient).That I've managed to reduce my mindless internet time and replace it with productive reading.That I've been cooking this week.That people are interested in my event.That this post is better than my first one :).

With non-fiction I prefer my Kindle because I can easily re-read passages, jump to footnotes, and see the illustrations. Fiction is something I usually read when my hands are busy (doing chores, buying groceries...) or before falling asleep. +1. I'm not big on audiobooks (I do a lot of podcasts though) but I love kindle for non-fiction. Also great for looking up technical terms you might not know on the fly. I've also recently started reading fiction before bed, and I think that's a great way to go. As Tim Ferriss puts it, reading fiction is a good way to wind-down the analytical, problem-solving part of your brain that's been going all day. Ahhh, I need to read fiction. As a person/reader, I am overly analytical, and reading anything other than nonfiction is really difficult. I used to love to read fiction as a kid, and still remember random crap from harry potter books because of how many times I have read each book... Anyone have some recommendations? I'm actually kind of the same way. Very analytical, nine times out of ten I read non-fiction over fiction. Funny you should mention Harry Potter. I'm currently reading The Name of the Wind as my evening fiction, which I highly recommend. It's been called an adult Harry Potter book by some. It's a mature themed story about a magic user coming of age, essentially, but it's much more than that, too. It's very intelligent and there's a logic to the world - I find as an analytical thinker the story works for me. I'm a couple hundred pages in and it's great so far. Anyway, you may like it!

With non-fiction I prefer my Kindle because I can easily re-read passages, jump to footnotes, and see the illustrations. Fiction is something I usually read when my hands are busy (doing chores, buying groceries...) or before falling asleep. +1. I'm not big on audiobooks (I do a lot of podcasts though) but I love kindle for non-fiction. Also great for looking up technical terms you might not know on the fly. I've also recently started reading fiction before bed, and I think that's a great way to go. As Tim Ferriss puts it, reading fiction is a good way to wind-down the analytical, problem-solving part of your brain that's been going all day.

Day 109 Went out to trivia with friends last night. It was the first social event I had had in a while that involved people I didn't know well. I've spent a decent amount of time alone lately too. As a result I'm not sure I was socially calibrated well. Someone asked me about my New Years Eve and I decided to be honest - I told them I didn't feel like going out so I just stayed in and read a book. They asked what book, I said, "well, there's this old short story horror collection that was written in the late 1800s, and it ended up being a big influence for the show True Detective which I recently watched, so I read that." Which was true. I said this in service of trying to be and open and vulnerable but I'm worrying came off as odd or pretentious. A related note last night was that I realized how much my self-worth is based on my intellect or intelligence. This isn't news to me, but I just really noticed it last night. I felt great when I knew the answer to a trivia question for our team. I sometimes made comments that I felt might have made me look arrogant or something. Maybe the fact that I'm even thinking about this means I'm not arrogant? I'm probably overthinking this, I realize now. I'm going to blame it on my cold . On an unrelated note, I've gotten back to listening to the Tim Ferriss Show podcast, and I've listened to a few eps where he talks about the Choice Minimal Lifestyle, decision fatigue, and ways to optimize using your willpower/attention/etc. This is all super interesting to me right now and relevant to my job, where I'm trying to churn through an endless to do list that requires prioritizing. Learning to focus on a single task at a time to avoid task switching, or plan ahead of time what I'm doing when so I don't have to waste energy deciding what to do next - these are great insights. That's all for today. It's been a long week. Currently Reading Non-Fiction: 1) This Will Make You Smarter, 2) Introduction To Marx And Engels: A Critical ReconstructionFiction: The Name of the WindGratitudeGoing to a social event last night.Not being too sick to function.The rain we've been having.Eating in lately and saving money.Learning how to be more efficient.

Day 108 Woke up with a cold today. I felt relatively OK though, so I decided to come into work. I'll leave early if it gets worse. Yesterday at work I locked my keys in my car while it was still running. I really had to resist beating myself up about it; I felt like such an idiot. I felt pretty embarrassed. It was also in the rain, and in an inconvenient location for someone to come help (AAA etc). Thankfully I was near our maintenance department at the time, and they were happy to help me out. I didn't feel like they were judging me at all it; it was something they had all seen and dealt with before a lot and it was no big deal. They improvised slimjims out of metal rods and after 20 minutes in the rain under this funky Hawaiian umbrella they were able to get it open for me. Very grateful. I learned two things from the experience. One, that in situations like that where things are beyond my control (I'm just waiting for them to get it unlocked) there's no sense in worrying or panicking since I can't influence the outcome. Two, that it's okay to rely on others to help you sometimes. Being back at work I of course have less time to devote to myself and my personal development, but I suppose that makes the hours I do have free all the more important. Right now I'm focusing on improving organization and focus and workflow at work, which are thankfully transferable skills. Today is my weekly trivia tonight, it will be nice to see friends there again who I haven't seen in two weeks. That's all I have for today. I'm going to take my slightly sick self and go get as much done as I can Have a good day everyone. Currently Reading Non-Fiction: 1) This Will Make You Smarter, 2) Introduction To Marx And Engels: A Critical ReconstructionFiction: The Name of the WindGratitudeCoworkers unlocking my car.Being productive yesterday.Centralizing my life in Evernote.Having the courage to ask my neighbor a question.Having a vulnerable conversation with a male friend.

Yeah, This Will Make You Smarter isn't for everyone, and is a bit dry, and also talks about a lot of thing I'm already familiar said. I mentioned elsewhere that I'm reading it for a book club, and didn't intend it as a recommendation for the forum. I put it here to represent my interests and current headspace. Glad you're liking The Shallows though!

Day 107 Yesterday I read Leo Baubata's Focus manifesto (http://focusmanifesto.com/). Thanks to Cam for recommendation in another thread. This was a wonderful refresher for me. I'm familiar with his general philosophy, but this was an excellent distillation of how to focus and I really needed it right now. It helped me begin to declutter my life again, physically and digitally. I went through a big declutter phase a few years ago, but it's nice to tidy up once in a while. Recently I feel like my life has gotten pretty cluttered again. The manifesto talks about narrowing your focus in your life by deciding what is most important to you. After thinking about it, I realized that having a Netflix subscription makes me feel "guilty" for not watching things on Netflix, which is silly. I feel like I "should" watch certain TV series because people tell me they're good or that I'll like them. But they're rarely something I naturally gravitate towards in my free time. Deciding to watch them feels like moving uphill instead of downhill, if that makes sense. Going against the grain. So I decided to cancel my subscription and save myself some money. I usually watch movies with friends, or occasionally if I'm really in the mood I'll rent one on Google Play. But I don't actually use Netflix that much. Simply getting rid of it makes me feel like I have fewer 'to-do's - watching certain movies or series actually weighed on my mind as something I needed to do. I'd rather not have that in my mindset, there are more important things to focus on. Leo points out that you can't do everything; you have to choose the set of things you actually have time to do, and hopefully focus and do them well, which is a mindset that I like. If nothing else, I think that replacing TV time with more books is truer to the person that I want to be. Following up with my reddit/facebook stuff, I'm also going to try to consume less news/blogs. Most of the time I did it to escape whatever I didn't want to work on... it was more of a form of procrastination than me seeking out actual interests. Leo points out that the reason we have trouble unplugging from endless sources of information is because we're afraid of not knowing - afraid we'll miss something important. In reality, this is rarely the case. In 2010 I was in a remote part of Indonesia for 1 month, and we had basically no contact with the outside world other than a satellite phone. I remember getting back to the US and checking the news, anxious to learn what I had missed, and I realized that nothing truly significant had actually happened. Sure, important news sometimes happens, but it's actually pretty rare, and if something so earth-shaking happens that you need to know about it, you're going to find out. Someone will tell you. You'll hear it on a TV or radio in some public place. There's nothing wrong with reading the news, obviously. But I want to make it less of a reflexive procrastination habit. Or get over the thought that I'm somehow worse off for not forcing myself to keep up every day. Last night I began to declutter my apartment a bit. Threw out of a few things, but it's a gradual process. It feels good though, and I'm going to keep going with it. It's nice to tune in to how my environment affects my emotions. Currently Reading Non-Fiction: 1) This Will Make You Smarter, 2) Introduction To Marx And Engels: A Critical ReconstructionFiction: The Name of the WindGratitudeGetting a good night's sleep.Hot shower.Eating breakfast.Getting to work on time.Podcasts while driving to work.

Hey games_be_gone, Glad to see another journal here. With respect to feeling distracted, you might check out http://www.amazon.com/The-Shallows-Internet-Doing-Brains/dp/0393339750. While games are certainly distracting, the internet plays a huge role too. But I can tell you that as you change your habits your ability to focus will increase, the brain fog will start to lift .

Day 106 I'm back at my job today. Pretty mellow morning so far. Just catching up on emails and making sure everything is still running smoothly. I've mentioned a few times here that over the break I really stopped using facebook and reddit for the most part. I think this has really made a huge difference for me, so I want to expand on it a bit. In The Shallows, Nicholas Carr talks about the internet and the concept of "cognitive load", or basically how much information our brains are having to process at any given time. Internet browsing has so many distractions, and this increases our cognitive load significantly, which over time reduces out ability to focus for extended periods. We train ourselves to follow the rabbit hole of new content and hyperlinks. There was a study that showed that when two people are reading the same text, but one with hyperlinks on some words and some without, the person reading the text without hyperlinks will have better reading comprehension. This is striking, but makes sense - each time you come across a hyperlink, your brain has to make an extra decision of whether to click it or not. That's actually a decent advertisement for extensions like Readability, which extract text from pages and present it to you in a cleaned up format. Reddit, Facebook, and other sites with endless streams of scrolling content ramp up your cognitive load severely. I think they impact me much more than a site with a static page, like a news site. I installed a plugin for facebook that disables the news feed, so now I only use facebook for events and messaging, basically. When I saw the blank news feed page I actually feel tension leaving my body as I relaxed, realizing I didn't have to process a deluge of new information. After being away from reddit for a couple weeks, looking at its homepage actually stresses me out. It's just so much information to process. Since removing or changing how I use these sites, and dedicating myself to reading books instead, I have increased my ability to focus for long periods of time. The other night I sat engrossed in a book and read for 4 hours straight, which I haven't done in years. It felt fantastic to be in such a prolonged flow state. I have a goal to read 36 books this year, so I think sticking to this trend of reducing distracting internet time and putting that time to books is going to be the only way I can really achieve it. Sure, I'll still look at a reddit thread here or there if it comes up in a google search, but hopefully my days of mindlessly browsing for something to entertain me are gone. Currently Reading Non-Fiction This Will Make You SmarterIntroduction To Marx And Engels: A Critical Reconstruction (Dimensions of Philosophy)FictionThe Name of the WindGratitudeA quiet morning back at work.Getting invited to sushi by coworkers.Feeling sore from working out yesterday Not having any emergencies to tend to right away.Morning coffee.

Hey Matt, enjoying your journal. I liked how you try to summarize what you've learned. It's a positive thing and a good way to keep moving forward. I saw in an earlier post that you and your girlfriend broke up a bit after you quit gaming. Funny that the same thing happened to me and a couple other people. Great job and keep it up!

I'm about half-way through it currently. It really depends on your interests. If you like science and are interested in scientific concepts and critical thinking then you'll probably enjoy it. If you already know a lot about that area some of it will probably be old hat. I think my biggest criticism is that most of the essays are very short - basically just long enough to explain the concept they're wanting to convey. So you have 150 short essays that cluster into loosely related topics. I think I would have preferred fewer, longer essays. It's an enjoyable read overall, but I'm reading it for a book club - I probably wouldn't have picked it up of my own free will, to be honest.

This is actually a great point that probably deserves more discussion. The fact that gaming gives you this sense of achievement tricks us into feeling like we're improving our lives and attaining our goals when we're doing no such thing. Understanding this is probably key to getting past gaming and investing our energy into real forms of achievement in life.

Hey Spinips - I used to use Headspace as well. Eventually I sort of grew out of it; now I use the app Insight Timer. It's free and has a lot of guided meditation options. I would recommend Tara Brach's stuff if you haven't heard them before. It also has a great cutomizable timer for unguided meditation. How did you get started in BJJ? It's something I'm considering trying but I don't know very much about it.

Day 105 Bootcamp Feeling great today. I went to a fitness bootcamp meetup event this morning. It was the first time I'd been to this particular event. There were a lot of people there, I'd say 15 or so plus 2 instructors. It was at a park right adjacent to the ocean basically, so we had a great view, and the weather was great this morning, too. It kicked my butt. My quads hate me right now. I knew one person at the event because I had met him at the rock-climbing meetup event I went to last month, so it was nice to see him again. Besides that, everyone there was really positive and friendly. The coaches were awesome, very enthusiastic and supportive. Lots of high fives and encouragement. The workout itself was great, too. I will definitely be going back. At the end one of the coaches gave a little start-of-a-new-year spiel about improving your life by having the right mindset and making the right choices, and how she had gone from a place of being on suicide watch to living a life she loved, which is quite the story. What that really said to me was ... here is a group of people who really care about self-improvement. I'm beginning to realize that most of the people I've spent my life around really do not have that mindset. There are a few here or there that do, but if you look at most gamers for example, they don't have that mindset at all, in my experience. They're not gaming to improve themselves. Up until now the only place I've really encountered people with a mindset like this is online - to find it in real life is really exciting, and proves to me that I can find better people to spend my time with if I try, people who share my goals and aspirations and drive to improve and live a life is meaningful. I guess part of me didn't think that was possible until now, for some reason. I just haven't been exposed to it. 2016 Goals I've spent a little time working out my goals for this coming year. Zenhabits has a nice post that gave me some inspiration. The main thing I took away was his first point - monthly challenges with a weekly focus. In the past I've tried to change one habit each month for a year, and that was actually a good framework for me. 20-30 days is about the right amount of time to start a new habit. I started doing that, based off of reading Zenhabits, way back in like 2011 in college. That was how I first began to meditate, exercise regularly, etc. So I'm going to revisit that and expand the structure a bit. For each month I'm going to pick a special focus. For January, it's going to be exercise. My commitment is going to be going to this bootcamp event every Sunday for the month. I also have goals that will be constant every month. For example, I committed to reading 36 books this year, or 3 books per month. So I'll have to track that and make sure I'm keeping up with that. I have a savings goal, so I'm going to review my spending once per week using Personal Capital (great service) and make sure that I'm on track to meet that goal. I also want to work on my writing, so I'm going to have a weekly writing goal... not sure what that will look like yet. Maybe I'll get back to weekly blog posts. I'm tracking this all in Evernote, where I can format it as a to-do list and list out each of my month's goals. I think I will also include quarterly goals or reviews, but I'm not sure how that will go down just yet. Vacation...ending. Also, today is the last day of my vacation from work. Back to the old grind tomorrow... it'll be interesting to see how they got along without me haha. Also, time to switch back to my old schedule! I was beginning to like the new schedule I worked out for myself. But I think it's been a good vacation length and I'm ready to go back. I got a lot of work done on personal projects! Personal achievements during my vacation: Learning how to create a schedule to motivate myself and keep busyDeleted all my game accountsWent paperlessRead 3 booksBought new clothesCompleted all my Xmas shoppingDetoxed from reddit and facebookOpened a Roth IRA for myselfExplored new creative outletsDid a lot of social stuffAll in all, not too bad! Hope everyone has a great day! Currently Reading Non-Fiction This Will Make You SmarterIntroduction To Marx And Engels: A Critical Reconstruction (Dimensions of Philosophy)FictionThe Name of the WindGratitudeThe excellent bootcamp group I went to.Grocery shopping last night instead of procrastinating on it.Protein shake + banana.Figuring out my goals for this month.Having had a great vacation.

I think there are multiple schools of thought on that. While I get the idea of not telling people what you're "thinking of doing", being accountable to your goals is also good. If you tell people "I AM going to do this" and then you don't, then you'll have to admit to them that you failed or didn't follow through, which can be its own kind of motivator.

Day 104 I observed back when I was in college that you really get out of college what you put into it. If you study harder, focus, seek out opportunities that interest you, you'll get more value out of your education and your time in that environment. It occurred to me recently that this generalizes to all of life, too. If we engage with life and take responsibility for our lives, and seek out what we really want, we're going to have a much better time than if we distract ourselves and passively wait around for things to come to us. It's pretty obvious I guess, but it's not something that everyone immediately knows. --- A friend invited me out to a Magic: The Gathering draft last night. I've played Magic a bit in the past, but never been that hardcore about it. I was actually debating whether to go or not, but ultimately convinced myself to do it, since I said I would, and I didn't want to go back on my word. Plus, it would get me out of the house, I figured. The event was okay. I got to socialize a bit around new people. I won one round and lost another, but didn't really care if I won or lost, to be honest. I had fun, but I just wasn't really feeling it. I was there 3.5 hours and decided to go home even though the event was still going on for a while. When I got back I was in an odd mood. I couldn't help but feel like Magic felt like a video game in physical form. In order to be good at it, it takes so much time, money, effort, etc, because there's always changing cards and the meta shifts, etc. I guess I resented this. The sort of people at the event were all nerdy guys with various degrees of social intelligence and emotional maturity. I could fit in with them, sure, but there are probably other groups I'd rather be spending time with, who might help me grow as a person more. I'd rather spend my socializing time doing things that involve more actual interaction with people. Magic is a game that takes a lot of thought - and other parts of my life (work, hobbies like reading and writing) already involve enough intellectual, analytical effort... I'd rather my time socializing didn't also require that. I prefer to just relax and talk to people these days. I guess now that I've eliminated video games from my life, I've freed myself from the notion that games in general are worth investing a ton of time and energy into. In this case, it doesn't matter to me whether the game is physical or virtual, I guess. Board games with friends that are quick to learn and fill an evening - those are great. But collectible card games, for example, are a whole other beast. One thing that does still catch my interest about Magic isn't the game mechanics, but the awesome art and fantasy themes - thankfully, there are plenty of awesome pieces of fiction I can indulge to scratch that itch. I don't know. Something just didn't sit right with me about the whole experience. This is a surprise to me, but I suppose it's telling of where I'm at on my journey. Food for thought. --- It occurs to me that writing these entries feel like laying bricks in a wall. When I started I had nothing. Now, I have a little wall made of a 104 bricks. It's not a big wall, but it's not nothing, either. Some bricks feel more significant than others, but they all connect together to form a whole. Currently Reading Non-FictionThis Will Make You SmarterIntroduction To Marx And Engels: A Critical Reconstruction (Dimensions of Philosophy)FictionThe Name of the WindThe King In Yellow (Finished)GratitudeDiscovering cosmic horror and weird fiction through True Detective and The King In Yellow.Arranging for my friend to help my sister build a website.Being vulnerable by putting myself into new experiences this weekend.Discounted massage that I got today.Being more active today.

^ What he said

Glad you were able to game without it sucking you in farther than you wanted it to. Love the picture! In terms of bookmarking stuff, check out Pocket if you're interested in a way to save stuff to check out later, it's a great app.

With the lion I started with a template (basically, a framework for the lion's face that I got from a book) and I filled it in with patterns. So I can't claim total originality But I'm glad you liked it! Thanks for the book recommendations, I'll check them out.

Awesome idea, count me in. My current challenge to myself is no gaming or gaming streams or videos. The exceptions are - in social situations I can game or play arcade games briefly, if people are asking me to play with them. Other than that though, I steer totally clear. Here's to a gaming free January!

Day 103 Having an okay day today. Got up, went to a coffee shop, read. I didn't do all of my morning routine though. It's been tough some days, because I've been feeling lethargic and low energy lately, and it just takes way more willpower than usual. I think I know why that is though. It didn't occur to me until today, even though it's pretty obvious. I've been really sedentary for the majority of my vacation. I've been doing a little bit of body weight exercise each day, but I'm realizing that this is insufficient for me - I need more exercise overall to feel good. I think if I start getting more exercise in, my energy levels will pick up. For today and tomorrow, I'm going to try to get 10,000 steps, and then on Sunday I'm planning on going to a fitness bootcamp meetup . It was only a month ago or so that I ran my 5k, but since then, without doing that extra training, I think my physical fitness has tapered off a bit... I definitely need to add more fitness back in. Living and learning! I'm hoping that I'll like the bootcamp and I can start going to it weekly; if all else fails I can always train for another 5k, since I know more are coming up soon. I didn't really do anything for NYE. I wasn't able to find something to go to, but in the end it was fine because I didn't really feel like socializing last night. I ended up reading a book all night, and really enjoyed it. Hoorah introversion. I went for a walk at a trail nearby today. It was a place that reminded me of my ex, so it put me in a reflective mood. I think I'm making progress in moving on from the relationship. It felt good to sit and think in a quiet shady place, though. I guess I don't have any major insights today. Trying to be patient with myself and appreciate where I'm at. Finding the right habits, creating them, and maintaining them can be a challenge... but so worth it. Currently Reading Non-Fiction This Will Make You Smarter Introduction To Marx And Engels: A Critical Reconstruction (Dimensions of Philosophy) Fiction The Name of the Wind The King In Yellow GratitudeWalks in the shade.Reading outside in fresh air.Making plans with friends.Getting more physical activity.Discovering new books.