Well, it was certainly my every intention to do as my title suggests, but I guess that is really the whole reason we all go out and party every New Year's Eve. We have that drive that wants to make things better than they were in the past, so for some reason our natural thought is to go out with friends, hang out with the family, maybe even cram the last few items we'd intended on accomplishing the rest of the year into that evening. Sounds like an invitation for failure, but I am guilty of doing it just like the rest.
So, what did I do? Stayed at home, worked on a new project (laptop stand), ate copious amounts of bean dip and chips, and decided to have a cappuccino packet spiked with Vodka. Yeah, that last bit was really the kicker; I know that I had that coffee liquor mix mostly out of frustration that I have a limited time before I get to go back to my duties as a slave monkey at work. Don't get me wrong, I like what I do, I just don't like the fact that I am likely looking at probation because my second level boss doesn't think I do enough. Doesn't help that every year he has to hand out so many "poor" performance marks, and when I don't spend any time "promoting" every little accomplishment I make, I look like a slacker. Ugh, anyway, enough of that. I certainly regret that decision, but I guess we all do plenty that we regret, miss enough opportunity to better ourselves and our situation and that is what that last hurrah is about at the end of the year.
Basically, I wasn't able to hang out with friends this year, tried to do something that I can mark as an accomplishment for 2013, and instead worked on a project avoiding setting up my office, didn't exactly eat healthily, then added caffeine and liquor to the mix. This basically meant I was up a bit later than I intended just reflecting on the past year, even the past day, and all the ways I went wrong. To be fair, this is the type of thinking that is habit for me, so I was simply following well established patterns, sitting in the groove rather than holding myself up and out of those ruts and learning new methods of thinking. Well, I guess that is now the challenge and goal for 2014, right?
Anywho, I don't need to start on that path today, since it will certainly keep me from making progress on my goals. One small achievement, I did finish my mom's Christmas present and send it off to her yesterday. It definitely took longer than I expected and involved more effort than I originally anticipated, though I realize that is pretty often the case with new creations, so I digress. At least I finished it and sent it off to be scrutinized, analyzed, appreciated or whatever the response becomes. I have a hard time finishing projects through once I run into a snag, since I tend to exaggerate the error into a uncompromising failure preventing me from attempting to mitigate and continue forward. Take my damn dog door project as an example; I have hung the doors, know just what I want to do to finish everything up, but once I tried to follow a simple instructible online and failed to get the same results with the transistor, pretty much have stopped doing anything more to finish what I started. I've been working on this project for well over a year, and feel pretty pathetic being so unable to complete everything and get the results I hoped for... but, I do have to recognize that it's quite the undertaking and I have been unwilling to give myself the time and resources to really get anywhere on the entire venture. I am going to see what I can do focusing on all of these facts, understanding the fundamental lesson I seek with not just this project, but my life moving into the new year, and will hopefully have plenty of progress to post about here... the main intent behind this blog. Here's to 2014, a new method of thinking, acting, and doing!
