New Year’s Resolutions

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New Year’s Resolutions for 2018.

I have some ideas for what I want to do this year. I hope that by writing them down today, I can more easily record how the year develops relative to my expectations, and get an examination of why the year did or didn’t match expectations at the end.

  1. Reduce my social media footprint.

    I am philosophically unhappy with Facebook and Twitter, in that they have become closed gardens with administration policies that are often passively and sometimes actively hostile to their users.

    While I enjoyed having a means of communication and keeping abreast with my personal friends on Facebook, and a vibrant if chaotic platform for discussion on Twitter, I found less and less value over time as I became frustrated with the advertisements, poor policy, and “shouting class” activity. I plan to transition more fully to Mastodon for personal networking, particularly as the nature of the federated system allows us to tailor behavior for instances while also partaking in the full network at leisure.

  2. Write more.

    I want to get back into /r/teslore, as well as write more articles about computing and the way I use it, or would like to use it, at work or in my hobbies.

  3. Read more.

    My taste in reading lately has moved almost wholly to technical books. I want to expand my range there, as hyper-specialization is useful but limiting, and I also should get at least a little back into literature.

  4. Resume my exercise routine.

  5. Continue learning German.

    I’d like to finish the DuoLingo course on German this year, and determine how (and whether) to proceed after doing so.

  6. Improve my ability to express and communicate emotions, and try to improve my emotional health.

    This is something with which I struggle a fair amount, but it’s important to me that I maintain a healthy relationship with my friends and partner, and I recognize that doing so is going to require some work and character development I have not previously done.

    I fully expect this to be uncomfortable and difficult, but, I also believe it to be necessary.

    We’ll see how it goes.

  7. Resume my formal education.

    I work for a university! I have ready access to classes and curricula and resources of which I can and should take advantage.

  8. Stabilize my work/personal balances.