Be Excellent To Each Other

Just wondering what challenges people are setting themselves for next year.

One of mine is, is to put my diabetes into remission.

All subject to change but currently:

- get fitter and lose weight
- do more hiking
- get a new job
- carry on seeking new experiences

Get a 3D printer

Try and get to the gym 3 times a week rather than 2

Get more paintings finished

Your mum

Oh, hang on, that's not a challenge.

Finding a new job, if I'm made redundant, which is quite likely.

Living within my means, if I can't find a new job.

I've gained most of the weight I lost this time last year so first one is to get my shit together exercise wise

Next will be to stop drinking until well after child number 2 is born so 6 months minimum.

Also stopping my 3-5 a day smoking habit which I only do at work and I never miss or think about smoking on weekends or when on holiday.

Then I want to learn more about docker and play with that as I find it really interesting.

Knock the snacking on the head.

Try to worry and despair less, no matter what happens in the world.

Write more.

Work to become THE Welsh photographer of the arts and performing arts.

Go on then, why not.

Write.
Finish web projects I start.
Actually start making money.

Eiffel Tower.

o/

\o

Ginger Kong.

Mark, print some biplanes.

I would like to sort out my clutter and downsize on stuff. For instance, my mom and dads loft is still full of my stuff. I've been selling a load on eBay and shall continue next year. I'd also like to sort out my wardrobe. It seems simple, yet I've never got round to it.

So yeah... Simple challenges. I'm sure I'll think of more but those were the first things that came to mind.

I have decided this year to try

* Rebuild bridges with family and friends.
* Get fit again
* do the Cotswold Classic triathlon in 221 days

Your family engineers?

You're not really challenging yourself there, are you.

This year I will:
- Not 'yuck' anyone else's 'yum'. A kind of live and let live, but if someone else is enjoying something, there's no need for me to ruin that for them, be it their happiness, a hobby they like, the way they choose to express their grief, or anything.
- Try to recognise more when I can congratulate someone for something they're happy with or doing well at, even if this is just the like button on a facebook post.
- Try to do a nice thing for someone else every day. If I miss a day it's no biggie, but if I can remember to do a nice thing then it makes the world a nicer place.

Nothing too specific for me, just a rather broad challenge to get myself happier. I've got a calendar up in the kitchen and today I bought a couple of highlighters to mark a day as good or bad, so hopefully I can see more good than bad days being marked as the year goes on. I've a tendency to get bogged down with the negatives, so I figure the old AA/GA 'one day at a time' mantra might help a little.

One thing that's worked for me over the past year, and that I'm going to continue this year, is to write in a diary at least one thing that happened each day. No feelings, no teenage angst, just something like:



Over time it's fun to look back and see just how busy you've been. Another friend does something similar, but writes one good thing per day, even as small as the guy in the coffee shop smiling at your joke)

I kind of hope you've not corrected someone on how they've expressed grief in the past

Person: " So many people dead in this train crash! Why oh why couldn't less people have died?! "
Mr Russ: "Ahem. Fewer."

No, this was more in reference to a facebook post I saw over Christmas. One of my work colleagues expressed that (paraphrased) we shouldn't be upset about all these celebrity deaths because there are real friends and family you should get upset about.

It bothered me more than I'd like to admit, and I formed about 8 responses over the days in my head before deciding to just leave it, and so my comment above was more to use that as an example of how not to be.

But where did they bury the survivors?

I had to leave a 'Support group' on Facebook for a similar reason over the weekend. Thankfully before I'd posted anything.

Thank God that cunt is gone.


I NO RITE

So that's what an echo chamber looks like.

I think that's a great challenge Kov.

In no particular order:
Sort my mental health out
Finish my Masters
Finish this house
Get a new Job
Visit my Dad in America
Move house
Lose weight and get fitter
Get rid of a load of stuff in this house
Get organised (mega challange for me)

That's a really good idea. My counselor recommended a book to me called The Upward Spiral, I'm finding it quite good/helpful at the moment. I'll let you know what I think when I've finished it if you like.

Yes please.

- Clear some fucking debt
- Stop buying gadgetry and other bollocks that contributes to the fucking debt
- Otherwise, continue being awesome

Fairly consistent aim as the past two years but with bonus variations

[1]Try and have my son not die
[Bonus 1]Wring the final 12 months of sympathy out of all this shit
[Bonus 2] Try not to panic at the end of the year when all this shit 'ends'.

I think this puts things into perspective a little bit.
You've been doing an amazing job APOD, you're a credit to yourself and your son for how you've handled this whole thing.

x1000

Bonus 1 is off to a good start

Quite

366 days to go!

I disagree (about the perspective thing). Any one of your nays in 2016 had the potential to go much worse than my 2016 did, or feel a fuck load worse than things ever did at any point for us since (I can date this precisely) 9pm on 23rd December 2014 (when we'd come to terms with everything and then it fucked over Christmas too).

In total the Boy spent five nights in hospital throughout 2016 compared to about 25 in 2015. An average five year old would keep his parents awake all night being ill far more than five nights a year.

And in the long term the chances of anything going wrong are now one in 20. The chance of it going really wrong is one in fifty. And if either of those things happen, the overall probability is that they would start to happen only in Feb/March 2018.

So 2017 should by all various factors be an easy year. In fact I'd rate the risk of bad stuff happening being 5000/1 for this year. Nothing ever comes in at those odds.

I guess it's all about perspective.

It's good to hear those odds though. I miss your FB updates (but totally understand why you culled).

I wish I could remember

That is good news.

Something something, internet weirdos, something.

What if my yum is yucking your yums? Will you still refrain from yucking them?

No, if I haven't got anything positive to contribute then why would I be sticking my oar in? To make myself feel better?

I would hope that you would decide that any time you wanted to 'yuck' anything that you'd decide not to; and walk away and ignore it instead. If you can't make something better, why try to make it worse?

Thanks for treating my throwaway comment with the depth it didn't deserve.

It's part of the new me. Try and treat everything at face value and assume that people need help when they seem to, and that they're being sincere.

Myp needs a lot of help

I'm not convinced that's going to work out well around here.

Or are you?

I yucked your mum up the bum and she said "Yum yum".