2024-11-29
tags: none
Words: 664 (2 minutes to read)
(This is entry 49 of #100DaysToOffload)
For next year, I'm going to try make some pretty drastic changes. I want to pivot my life around the big four. I plan to have a fairly... ascetic, in a sense, existence, but which also has more in the way of new experiences. It is a progression on the changes I have made over this year.
In fact, I'm going to start in December, to get a month of getting used to it.
(The below is somewhat of a re-write of a personal note, with some parts removed or reworded. Apologies if it's not great.)
I wouldn't call the goal to be ascetic, but more to remove extraneous things. I want to focus on a more limited set of things, and give them my proper attention. Potentially to go a bit slower, too: be more organised, structured, and pay the right attention to the right places, eliminating bad habits that have accumulated, and instead... doing more with less (to borrow a phrase from I think it is Boeing - but in, like, a good way, not an anti-worker way). A more directed life.
I don't know whether the guitar is the direction I want to go in. But I need to pick a direction and go that way. I'm still keeping up with health stuff and allotment and languages too, so I'm not fully losing touch. A framework to orient myself towards a better framework, in a sense.
I want to focus more on a smaller set of item: hence the big four.
The four is actually a few more as it subdivides: Study will be both the RHS course, as well as the IF2, and Italian, and anything else I start. Guitar is both guitar and mandolin. Health is both weights and running and skipping.
I will try to get my nails grown out, overcoming that habit of biting them excessively by putting gels on, and maybe even getting them painted?
Horrific! This is the shyness and inhibition I get around others. I want desperately to overcome it. I see no alternative but to engage more with people. This includes texting (that I don't do much of). Essentially, to overcome social malaise is highly important. I am fluent when drunk; I want to be when sober, too. Perhaps it is difficult when I am more the type to listen, and my interlocutor is too. Not sure. Regardless, fluidity is possible. Disinhibition seems to be key.
I want to be healthy. I don't think the gym is necessarily the all, and I held it for temporary when I began anyways. I'll buy weights, and save a good amount on the cost of a gym membership. The guitar, mandolin, and weights give me ample to do in the day at home to not feel bored: I can also study, too. This should give me a low-dopamine escape from more viceful activities: I emotionally regulate by keeping busy. I can hopefully continue to meet health goals, too. The new routine will focus more on cardio, and so promote heart health (I think direly needed) and weight loss.
Speed-dating. Alongside making new friendships to overcome social malaise, and replenish my rather lacking friendship circle (only two proper friends left) I would like to meet a partner. A relationship would force me to overcome the non-disclosure, too.
I have, these past couple years, been a tad frivolous financially. I wish to budget more: £600 for all monthly spending (including commute trains and food) with the remainder going to investments in the form of ISAs (I will need to set up), NS&I funds, etc.
I want to use the guitar and the mandolin as pivots I can progress via. Of course, it is a handy recreation to have, if I can play an instrument. The other ideal is that it gives me a thing to focus on. Again, the goal is to do more with less.
I'm going to use this for the year: see how it goes!
I want to finish #100DaysToOffload.