2023: Year in Review
My favorite tool/book/album and personal reflections about…. stuff. This headline clearly wasn’t written with ChatGPT.
Two weeks ago, winter depression hit me hard, and I didn’t think I’d write this post. However: by some sort of Christmas miracle, I’m feeling okay right now, so I will seize the moment and write some words about the year 2023.
had to add an image, it’s a me.
Let’s start with some innocent things and go to the more deep topics after.
Tool of the year: Obsidian.
The search for the best note-taking tool is over for me. Obsidian wins, hands down. I tried Day One early in the year, but that was a paid app that had tons of bugs, so I was like: nope. With Obsidian, you own your files, so even if the tool goes to shit: no problem! Also, I “discovered” the Zettelkasten system, and I’m trying that out in Obsidian.
My favorite book this year was: Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer
How I got to read this book is as follows: the YouTube algorithm served me videos of “adventures gone wrong” and this set in motion a month-long obsession with Mount Everest and the people crazy enough to climb it. I binged so many videos about the disasters that happened on the highest mountain of the world and learned about the fucked up culture with regard to Sherpa’s (how they are mistreated and underpaid), that rich people basically pay their way to the top (climbing experience be damned) and the enormous amount of trash (and dead bodies) we leave behind.
More than anything, I was strangely obsessed with the way all this information made me feel: a mixture of repulsed, fascinated and sad. And then that book, Into Thin Air, multiplied all those emotions tenfold. Krakauer is a very good writer, and he will take you up that mountain with him. It starts out innocent enough, but then everything goes wrong. I was constantly wondering why people do this to themselves, and I cannot answer that question. Fascinating.
My favorite heavy metal album this year
Based on number of plays, it should be Cattle Decapitation – Terrasite. Shoutout to that album for getting me through many heavy deadlift sessions, it’s ideal for that. But, it cannot be my favorite because this is metal of the unforgiving kind: it just blasts on and doesn’t evoke any emotion in me other than “must lift heavy circles”. I guess for “normal people” it will invoke repulsion (but that’s your problem, not mine).
The heavy metal genre that pulls at my emotions the most is atmospheric black metal. So I’m inclined to vote The Rime of Memory from Panopticon as my top album this year. The intro notwithstanding, the shortest song on the album is 9:24 long. Building atmosphere takes time, y’all. If you don’t like metal, don’t listen, but if you do: give it a try. You have to be able to stomach grunts, though.
Runners-up are Dutch heavy metal releases and also in the atmospheric category.
And now, the more personal reflection stuff
When I was in Japan, I created a quest for myself: Can I drastically change my life?
TLDR for that post: For some reason, being away from home makes me drastically want to change my life at home. 6 months later, I can reflect on it. And my conclusion is: the quest is wrong.
What I really wanted was to feel like a different person inside my head. Because it’s the voice inside my head that annoys the fuck out of me sometimes. The voice is judgmental, self-deprecating and too strict. And wherever you are or whatever you do: the voice will remain if all you do is change your outer world and not your inner world. It’s like eating pasta for dinner instead of rice and then expecting that to change how you feel about things.
To add insult to injury: this is not the first time I have fallen for this misguided way of thinking. I think many of us do: “I would feel different if X or Y has been accomplished”. Spoiler alert! No, you won’t, unless you also tackle your inner dialogue. Buying more stuff won’t make you happy, losing weight won’t suddenly make you feel different about yourself. You always carry your inner self with you.
The quest was also funny because I had already changed my life a lot! For some reason, I didn’t see it. I quit my IT job for the time being to finish my Nutrition Coach education. I set up the coaching company for that and learned that building a business by yourself is hard. So I don’t know why I thought I needed to add even more changes.
The inner workings and reflections did happen, although more by accident than purposefully. Back in September, I was so stressed about the lack of success for my company that it kept me awake at night. I felt awful about it on the daily. I don’t know how I did it, but I started talking more kindly to myself. I realized that stressing about it did not help at all, and I started accepting the feelings of uncertainty. Even if my company fails, that will not make me a loser. I will have to start working an IT job again, but at least I tried something. It’s the trying that matters most. Success isn’t guaranteed, even though many people try to sell you a recipe for success (most of those are a scam, I think. They’re just FOMO inducing). Anyway, something inside me relaxed. I had a lot of fun working again, because I just saw the “being able to work on this thing” as the win instead of the outcome.
About pure achievements
I participated in the Dutch national championships for powerlifting. It’s hilarious to me that I reached “national level” for a sport, even though I came last in my weight class. I’m happy I participated because this was my only and last chance. They upped the ante for next year. I have to add 50 kilos to my total in order to participate again, and there’s no way that’s going to happen. So that makes this participation all the sweeter! A true bucket-list achievement.
I also gave a Keynote at the Agile Testing Days! I was extremely happy with my presentation, I put a lot of effort into it. Moreover, I was so well-prepared that I only felt some nerves beforehand, but during the talk I was completely relaxed and able to enjoy the experience. That’s the real achievement to me.
The last “big” achievement is a team effort. My orchestra participated in a competition and we got a great result! Working towards this competition takes a couple of months, and it amazed me how almost 70 people spent a lot of their free time and effort in order to make the best possible music. It made me realize how blessed I am to experience this, which I wrote about on this here platform too.
My hopes and dreams for 2024
My hopes for planet earth are kind of low, not going to lie. I fear 2024 is going to be a year filled with more war, more heat thanks to climate change and more right-wing politicians rising to the top. I will probably not cover that in my Substack as the theme here is more: what can you do to live sensibly, what is in your sphere of influence. Because I went to Japan this year, I will avoid airplanes as much as possible and stay local. I will continue not buying a lot of stuff and work from home whenever I can.
Of course, I hope to be successful with my company and I will keep working towards my goals. If you are looking to work on your health in the coming year, and you want to make sustainable changes and not follow some crazy ass diet: hit me up, I can help you. The amount of misinformation and fear surrounding food always baffles me, I can help you take a more relaxed attitude towards it all and avoid it becoming a big “thing” in your head. End of commercial.
How has your year been? Any big plans for next year?
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