This year, I did a starfish retrospective for my annual goals/plan/whatever. I also wrote:
I dislike a year as a time period for goals and making life changes. Priorities change and what you want in January is going to be different from what you want in August and December. What ends up happening is that goals set in January reflect how I was feeling at that time.
Now that we’re officially into Q2 of 2023, I thought it would be a good time to check in and see how things are going.
I’m mirroring the format of the original post. The optimal way to read this might be side-by-side with the original post.
Keep doing
Travel. Outside of trips between NYC and home, I’ve only been to Austin (twice) and San Antonio this year. I don’t have any solid plans, but would like to visit Philly in the next few weeks and China at some point in 2023. Other than that, it’s more of a wait-and-see kinda thing.
Spending time with close friends. I lived in Austin for basically all of February and it was nice. Coming to New York, I underestimated how hard it would be to cultivate a social life with all my friends still at school. Living among your friends is an underrated aspect of the college experience and my time in Austin emphasized that. Coming back to NYC from Austin felt a bit like the depression you feel after finishing a TV show: there was a hole in my life where all my friends used to be.
Less of
Fake work. More on this below.
More of
Reading. I read a lot in January, very little in February, and have been trying to get back into it March - now. In January, I deleted Instagram, Reddit, and Twitter from my phone and spent my morning commute reading on the Kindle app. I blazed through Money Games (would recommend) and Robert Iger’s memoir (also recommend). Since then, I’m not sure if the books I’m reading are less interesting but, I’ve been bouncing between a couple without making significant progress on any (except for Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow which was very good).
Writing. Pleasantly surprised at how this is going. I had a slow start to the year because work was taking up most of my time, but since leaving, I’ve made progress in the places I wanted to. I published my piece on EchoShadow ahead of the unofficial deadline I set for myself, and have been writing consistently since then. I also had somewhat of a revelation for what I want out of writing online, and writing has become one of the things I’m most excited for in 2023.
Community at school. No progress to report because I’m not at school, but my mindset towards this is pretty similar to what I was feeling in January. I haven’t been doing the best job of keeping up with friends from school and other parts of my life. To remedy this, I’m experimenting with a “personal CRM” in Notion to track the last time I spoke with someone and how regularly I’d like to catch up with them.
Stop doing
Energy drainers at school. In January, I said I didn’t want to take classes that take up a lot of time and/or I don’t enjoy. My mind is a bit split on this because I don’t want to use it as an excuse for avoiding hard things (foreshadowing). In an ideal world, I’d take challenging classes and use them as an opportunity to learn and grow. However, from experience, I know that I’m more likely to end up resenting the class and either underperforming or doing the bare minimum to get by. I don’t have a solution I’m satisfied with yet.
Start
“Real work” and embracing hard things. Looking back, I didn’t have the right mental model for real and fake work. It’s a two-sided issue: stop doing fake work and start doing real work. I’ve done a good job at avoiding the intellectually stimulating, but ultimately not important, fake work. But it hasn’t had the desired effects on my life because I don’t think I’ve fully embraced the other side. I like to think I did real work at my job—I certainly learned a lot. But outside of work, I can’t confidently say I’ve embraced real work and hard things.
My mindset frequently switches on the hard things aspect. A line (I forget from who) I resonate a lot with is what if it were easy? I think there are invisible life scripts and stories we tell ourselves that convince us to grit our teeth and power through when small changes that make things “easier” might be better for achieving our goals.
One area I’m thinking this way is how to schedule my day. In January and March, I woke up at 7:30/8:00 most days and went to the gym. Getting out of bed was a real struggle and I fell into a slump towards the end of the day. The obvious solution would be to wake up later and go to the gym in the afternoon when I find myself getting less focused. That’s what I’m trying now, but I avoided this because it felt like taking the easy way out.
There’s definitely a balance to be struck. My latest line of thinking is that I should have specific activities set aside for the sole purpose of challenging me. Something like a long run every weekend. That way, I can do what works best for me, but also keep a level of challenge and difficulty in my life.
Bucket list things
The only item I’ve worked on is the marathon. I ran a few times when I was in Austin, and since returning to New York I’ve tried to keep that going (mostly on the treadmill because it’s cold). Now that the weather is warming up, I’m going to find a route/trail and do more road running.
Other observations and notes
Williamsburg is a much better place to live than lower Manhattan. I’m currently in the LES/Chinatown area and it feels so chaotic all the time. Traffic sounds, people, and too many subway lines to keep track of. Living in Williamsburg feels more realistic for someone like me.
I constantly feel FOMO/like I’m not taking full advantage of living here. Not only are there lots of things to do, but living here enables you to do things you can’t elsewhere. There’s a pressure to be meeting people, going to events, and visiting new places all the time. It’s unreasonable to do everything, but I can’t shake the feeling I’m squandering an opportunity.
I think part of this is that I’m only here for a bit. I like the idea of living in a place because living in a place is an ongoing process of uncovering a it. Through the roots you put down, you find areas that speak to you.
Something I’m thinking about more and more is that to succeed on unconventional paths, you need some level of irrational belief and faith that things will work out. I had a tough time readjusting to New York after a month in Austin. There was a period of maybe a week or two where I would get tightness in my chest (anxiety related, I think) at random moments throughout the day. It eventually went away, along with most of my apprehensions around moving back.
Bigger picture, it’s been a whole separate journey trying to make sense of how I’m spending my time. Sometimes, I get the sense my life in on pause while all my friends are making progress. Other times, I feel incredibly grateful that I get to do all these weird and wonderful things. I’m becoming more confident that I can make something out of any situation, and that I’m smart enough and can work hard enough to end up somewhere I want to be, regardless of what happens.