At the beginning of 2018, I recommended an episode of Cortex that was all about discussing “yearly themes.” I’ve genuinely been working on this idea in my head all year. The closest I ever really came to making a theme for this year was “the year of flexibility.” I wanted to become more open and experimental in how I worked, how I planned, how I parented, and also literally become more flexible physically.
None of those things really worked out well, though they’re all still on my mind. Such failures have driven me to figuring out exactly what I do want out of the next year or so: a refactor.
If my life had a changelog, I’d say we’re on Alex version 4. V4 is considered by all to be a great leap from previous versions, but it has come with a lot breaking changes. The health API (arguably the most important feature) is inconsistent at best and the source code is very hard to work with when bugs are identified.
Metaphors aside, I’ve identified that coding for a living is exactly what I should be doing but this state of sacrificing everything else so that I can keep chasing that identity has to stop. I need to cleanup my entire approach to living, not just programming. And some big commitments need to be made to really let that happen. It’s going to be a grind, but at this point there’s no avoiding it.
Some not-fun grinds are ahead, but what you can expect a year from now is I’ll still be coding: but with a different aim. I’ll still be parenting: but happier. I’ll still be a big dude: but less big.
Alex Gustafson 