The lede for today’s prompt is already gold, making it a tougher one to tackle than most.
We do like to look back at the past a lot. Shoot, it’s the reason I’m even attempting a somewhat focused return to blogging this December. It always seems to be for the purposes of looking at what’s wrong. – and never in a truly transformative way.
It helps to not beat yourself up about what you could have done and instead look at it as a way of being ready for the next challenge. Unfortunately, it’s easier to say you’ll change than it is to do it.
I can’t think of any one “do-over” moment in particular. Most of the things that come to mind are quite simple in hindsight:
- Not starting the vegetable garden in the backyard earlier;
- Not making time to make a visit to see Presscott when the opportunity presented itself;
- Not chasing after some more projects (and not focusing enough on finishing a few others);
- Not sharing many of the posts I wrote throughout the year;
- Not focusing on getting better at coding
After a while, I also found myself realizing the number of things I viewed as unsuccessful wasn’t nearly as plentiful as I’d thought. I also found myself thinking about those things I was happy I accomplished as a result of taking a chance.
- The last minute trip to Atlanta for ONA13;
- The Next City Vanguard application and others like it now populating my documents folder;
- The process of participating in #Reverb13 this year (albeit sporadically);
- Finally setting up a Git repo (yes, I’ll share it eventually)
If there’s anything that I’ve discovered as a result of this prompt, it’s recognizing I need choose a new word to describe my current state of mind. I’ve found myself using the word “insane” a lot. Recent conversations suggest perhaps using the word “unfulfilled” – as in agenda – may be more in order.
We’ll see if I look back at this sometime next year and wonder if I truly stayed the course…
