Year 41: Rebuild of Stonehaven
Posted on:
When the average person turns 40 years old, they likely take inventory of their lives—where they’re going, where they've been, yadda yadda yadda. They often go through a mid-life crisis and start trying to make up for what they perceive as “lost time”. Sometimes they change careers to chase a dream; sometimes they buy motorcycles; sometimes they go on week-long benders involving hookers and drugs. Suffice to say, 40 is an age of change.
That’s why I’m using my 40th birthday as a springboard to rebuild myself from the ground up. I can’t live like I have plenty of time to get my shit together. I don’t have that luxury any more.
First thing’s first: My days of endlessly browsing the Internet come to an end today. This is my biggest daily timesink—the one thing that keeps me from pursuing creative endeavours—and the habit of which I am most ashamed. With the help of the LeechBlock extension, some mindfulness techniques, and a whole lot of planning my days out beforehand, I’m hopeful to break myself of this destructive habit.
Creative endeavours are the next step in the process. Be it writing, making pixel art, picking up drawing again, or some other hobby, something has to take up the time I’d once used for the Internet. I’ll likely ease back into pixel art at first (I want to make a “base” palette for my work going forward). But I’ll also try to publish at least one thing to this site every week (banking on Sundays for that) so I can keep up that habit. At the least, I’ll post a weekly “progress report” of some sort to openly keep track of my activity.
Other, more personal issues are on the forefront of my mind as well. I have an eating disorder called ARFID, so I’ll be working on broadening my diet beyond my preferred foods over the next year. I likely have ADHD—never officially diagnosed, but it would make a lot of sense—so I’ll be reading on how to do shit with a distracted brain. (I already employ the Pomodoro technique to an extent.) And speaking of reading: Reading more books is another process I want to weave into my life.
So yeah, this is the start of the Rebuild of Stonehaven. And as I go into Year 41 with heightened self-awareness and the motivation to get my shit together, I’m going to keep one sentence in mind: “I can (try to) improve myself.” If I fail? Well, at least I plan to make a much better effort at trying this time.