Hello everyone! Congratulations for making it to Week 2! Although it hasn’t even been that long since 2021 started, it certainly feels like a lot has already happened.
So first, I wanted to go over some changes I will be making to these posts moving forward. I think it would be better, however, to first discuss how I got to this point.
Earlier in the week my friend, Nightmaren, had brought up some valid concerns regarding my approach for new routines such as these weekly posts. One of them being the potential of treating this new routine as a “challenge” without actually taking into consideration the actual end goal of successfully accomplishing said challenge. In essence, with how I tend to generalize things a lot, I may end up treating this routine only as “a challenge” rather than an opportunity to seriously develop new skills and habits.
I’ve always appreciated the candid criticisms Nightmaren would bring up. Just as much as I know my friend, Nightmaren perhaps knows me a lot better and is able to accurately predict my line of thinking. That’s why I take great value in Nightmaren’s thoughts and opinions as I know they’re not without merit nor without reason.
With that in mind, I’m going to remove the “Challenge” part of the title and simply name each weekly post with a simple suffix of “Week #” along with a title I think is fitting. Knowing how I am, I probably would end up forgetting the whole point of wanting to write blog posts every week and simply write for the sake of writing. What purpose would these posts serve, then, if it ended up all for naught?
Furthermore, I have finally realized what to focus on with these weekly posts as well.
What I initially had planned to do was to have these weekly posts serve as a summary of the week. However, I’ve already been writing a small journal every day so as to help improve my memory. If I were to have these posts serve as a summary of the week, I feel like I’d just end up rehashing a lot of what I had already written in my journal. Thus I’ve decided to have the summary part of the post act as a very low priority on what to write in these weekly posts from now on. Instead, I will write about something that’s been on my mind for the week and try to expand further on that in these posts.
Writing about things that have happened, concrete events, can be done with ease. Abstract topics, however, have proven time and time again to be something I struggle writing about. That is why these posts moving forward will primarily be written about something I think is worth talking about rather than the events that have happened within the week. I think that’d be better in the long run as I typically think my life is boring to write about anyway.
With that in mind, I also don’t expect this to be the only change to happen. In reality, I think the focus and intent of these posts will continue to evolve over the weeks. What I’m hoping, however, is that my skills along with my habits will evolve along with them.
Now that’s out of the way, some highlights of the week!
On Monday, I had a short meeting with one of the head devs from work who also happens to be one of the higher ups that typically handles pay compensation for the employees in the company. Last year, I had asked about the possibility of a raise moving into the next year and it was mentioned that it’s likely going to happen but more details would have to go over specifically with the aforementioned head dev. This meeting was regarding the pay raise I had requested. I actually managed to get a decent raise and we spoke about it along with his expectations regarding my performance moving forward.
The head dev actually mentioned he had high expectations and wanted to go over as to why. He went into detail as to his initial thoughts when the company had me come into the office for my in-person interview. To my surprise, he was really optimistic and seriously felt that I had a lot of potential of becoming a valued employee to the company. It was because of this strong impression he shared his expectations out of me so that I can reach them.
This was the first time I had been praised in this manner and felt truly valuable in my working life. It further cemented my desire to continue working for this company and helped motivate me to do my best to continue growing in this field!
Then next, the launch of Nightmaren’s Blog! I had been looking forward to it for such a long time and my excitement was starting to get a little overwhelming. I had been anticipating the launch of the new blog for such a long time, I intentionally saved the last batch of my favorite loose leaf tea for when Nightmaren would ultimately show me around!
Shortly after work, I quickly ran some errands that needed to be done and walked my dogs so that I would not be interrupted while I was being given the grand tour of the blog. It was so worth the wait and being kept in the dark for so long!
Nightmaren presented the blog to me through a Discord call. I turned on my webcam so that Nightmaren could see all of my reactions to what would be shown to me. I knew I would not be able to properly portray my amazement so I figured a visual would help illustrate my surprise and astonishment better. I like to think I did that fairly well!
I tried to figure out a way to accurately describe how I felt touring through the blog with how well it was created, however alas I have yet to succeed. Although it is more likely because I simply lack the finesse to write the complex emotions I had swelling within me as I continued to explore the website, I’d like to think it really is because the website was just that amazing.
That being said, I would HIGHLY encourage anyone that’s reading this right now to check Nightmaren’s blog: Kept After Class. Although the visuals, aesthetics, and features the website provides are incredible, arguably the best part of it all, what the design of the website was meant to highlight and focus on, are the posts. Not only are they all written in a way that is intelligent and well thought out, the posts also have something of a warm tone to them that gives each post a very human touch to it. It really does feel like Nightmaren is talking to you. A subtle trait that I think certainly sets the writing apart from so many others.
With work starting off excellently and having seen the launch of Nightmaren’s blog, I felt like the week was already off to a really great start!
Then Wednesday happened — rioters stormed into the Capitol Building. My summary of the events that unfolded that day would pale in comparison (and quality) to articles that have already been written regarding the event. In all honesty, it’s better to refer to those articles if you’d like to read more about the subject. It is shameful, however, that this was even remotely allowed to happen. All I hope is for this political nightmare to be over with soon.
Moving on to cruddy things that happened on a more personal note: power suddenly cut out for half of my apartment unit. My bathroom had no electricity (save for one outlet), my entire room had no electricity, and half of my sister’s room did not have power. This happened right around 4pm and by the time the apartment maintenance guy came in, it was close to the end of his shift so he couldn’t really do anything. He promised someone would come in early in the morning to fix the issue.
No one came the next morning.
No, in fact, the earliest an electrician would come into the apartment was going to be around the afternoon. I still had work to do so instead of waiting around, I decided working at the office would be a better use of my time (after confirming with head staff that I could go in safely without having any coworkers too close to my workstation).
According to my sister who was still home at the time, an electrician finally showed up around 2:30pm and managed to finish his job around 3pm. Turns out the issue came from a wire in my sister’s bathroom having suddenly gotten loose. “Frustrated” feels both the most appropriate and yet the most understated sentiment I had over the issue.
That’s all the highlights I have for now! I unfortunately did not take too many pictures this week. I did try to see if I could find something worth taking pictures of the last couple of days, but then I realized trying to find a picture to take just for the post, much like writing a post every week, defeated the point entirely. I think that will also have to be something I’ll have to ponder how I should approach it everyday. That being said, there are a few pictures I took that interested me this week.
The first image is the Secret Labs chair my sister had gotten me for Christmas. Although this chair is admittedly leagues above the one I had previously, I’ve a couple issues with it which may result in me returning the chair. I’ve spoke with my sister about at least trying the chair out, but it would be likely I will want to return it. I’m not sure if she understood where I was coming from or not, but I hope she at least knew that I was very appreciative of the fact she thought about me enough to get me a nice chair!
The other two pictures are from the food truck that was visiting the apartment complex last Friday. As a way to add a bit more value to the community, the apartment complex started having food trucks visit every Friday for few hours. Although I didn’t always take advantage of this, it was always nice knowing there would be an option to be able to order some food so close to where I live.
Well, that’s all I had! I look forward to next week! Hopefully I won’t take as long to write this post as I did today. I honestly did not expect it to be as long as it is now. Yet another thing for me to improve upon moving forward!
Good luck, everyone, and let’s hope week 3 goes well!
Congratulations on getting your raise, I’m glad for you. I see that you have been working on some sort of self-improvement process i.e. developing new routines and learning new skills. I can somewhat relate to what you’re currently experiencing in regards to sometimes seeing these routines as challenges rather than concrete goals. Challenges in my definition can be shrugged off if I fail them, but goals to me definitely require more commitment and a different mindset.
I’m not sure if all this would work for you, but it sort of worked for me: I think it’s important that if you want to develop new skills or get into a habit of doing something, you need better motivator factor(s) that are measurable and/or reasonably tangible.
For example, instead of me fretting about not getting a six pack in a matter of weeks or months by exercising, I try to change my goalposts to something like getting to a certain weight line. Small incremental steps are important in the beginning of the development process, so you can appreciate the smaller victories and that will enable you to take bigger steps eventually when you feel like you can take it further and ultimately get the ball rolling for routine developing. That is at least how I currently see how it should work.
As for things that bring you down during the day, try to ignore the things that you cannot have direct control of, and if you can’t, just know that you can’t really do anything about such things and all you can do is move forward with your own life. The insurrection at DC was definitely horrific, but unfortunately there’s nothing we can currently do about it unless we were actually there. Keeping these things in our mind will serve nothing but bring us down even more and make everything else seem worse during the day, so try to get uncontrollable things off your mind and put more focus on things you CAN control and perhaps find things you can do that can counter the negative thoughts in your mind.
Anyway, that is all I have to say for now. Keep up the good work, and again, try to stay consistent in what you do (and do so by making it easier to reach your goal posts to further motivate yourself), and most importantly, be happy with what you do, no matter how big or small the task is.
I would like to first start off by saying how glad I am to see that you are well. It’s been quite some time since I’ve seen you around and I truly am honored one of the first few things you did coming back was to leave a comment on my blog post. For that, I am thankful and truly appreciate it!
Yes, the distinction which you brought up between a “challenge” and a “goal” is precisely the concern my friend, Nightmaren, brought up. Indeed, having the proper mindset when tackling new habits, routines, and skills is essential if one is to actually achieve a desirable outcome. Furthermore, as you said, the outcome is much more easily attainable if there are concrete, tangible results that come from it. The example you brought up is honestly a good one and a lot of what you’ve said is similar to what I’ve mentioned to other people as well. It’s funny, however, that I didn’t really think that far ahead for my own self. I’ve been so focused on just the process of “improving” that I failed to outline the goal I wish to achieve along with the steps required to get to that point.
Regarding events that damper one’s mood and psyche, I think I’ve always been rather good at not letting things get to me. In fact, there have been times when my indifference to certain events have left me concerned. I began to wonder if I just stopped caring about these events. Instead of going into self-pity and getting nowhere with no answers, I settled on the fact that it’s likely I’m setting my priorities on something else. It’s like you said, “put more focus on things you CAN control.”
It’s interesting, really, to read what you’ve written. The words are familiar and the advice are almost exactly what I would give to my fellow peers, yet they are now being directed to me.
Thank you again, Tunnel. To say I was rather surprised and ecstatic to see your comment would not be an exaggeration whatsoever. In fact, it now feels as though I have someone joining me along in my journey.
It truly is good to have you back, my friend. Hope to see you around some more again!