Reflections on 2024
Personal reflections on how 2024 has gone for me, the things I've done, the things I've learned, and considerations of what might be next.
I don’t know if I’ll publish this post right away, it may take me some time, the end of this year has become incredibly busy. I feel like next year is going to be full of a lot of changes, and a lot of uncertainty. I don’t know what my life will look like in 2025, and it’s both scary and exciting.
Near the end of this year my spouse and I decided to vacation in New Zealand. The flight to reach Auckland was incredibly long. I love long flights, something about them leaves me with this sense of being untethered to the constraints with which I am usually burdened. Something about being airborne feels different, in a very deep way.
I found myself on the plane starting to think through all of the threads of my life, and wondering about my choices and how they got me where I am. It’s odd to reflect on the past, and remember the times where I had so much fewer resources compared to now. Remembering the lean years in college and early on when I was in Denver. I’ve been incredibly fortunate and lucky, and also I’ve tried to always keep my eyes and ears open for chances, opportunitites.
I think we have a lot less control over our lives than we wish we did, but I also feel like we often overlook the things we do have control over: the reactions we choose to have to the things that happen to us and around us, and the risks we’re willing to take. I think people often call this locus of control, and I think it’s something that I often forget to focus on. It’s easy to fall into anxiety and habitual thoughts in my daily life.
One of the things I’ve tried to do this year is continue my work towards self improvement and towards breaking my habituated anxiety by creating change in my life. Small change, generally, via little adventures I undertake. Seeing the eclipse. Summitting Mt. St. Helens. Road trips. All of these break up the normal, and much like being airborne lead me to finding new ideas, new possibilities.
I don’t know a way to hack my brain to get here yet, but, maybe some day I will.
Let’s see where 2025 takes us all.