I didn't ask to born on January 3rd, but that's the day...  When I was younger I thought it was just about the worst time to have a birthday.  Everyone had shot their load spending on Christmas(or whatever holiday you celebrated), and no one really seemed to give much of a shit a few days after New Year's Eve.  Probably due to nursing hangovers due to over imbibing from the realization that it was going to take at least a year to pay off the over spending.  Ha!  I make myself laugh more and more with each passing year.  I still contend that I'm the funniest person I know.  As I've gotten older I've found that my birthday is the perfect time to take a look back at the previous year or years and to solidify intentions for the upcoming year.

Looking back at 2018, in particular, saw quite a few trials and tribulations.  Mix in some self-inflicted pain, some really cool accomplishments, and I had the making of... Just about every other year I've had in my adult life with the exception of the years my children were born and the year I got married.  I literally just chuckled.  I bet you thought I was going to unload something extremely groundbreaking, didn't you?  I sooooo enjoy the big build up to the, wah-wah-wah-waaaaaah.  In all seriousness though, I did things in 2018 that I'd never done before: ran 2 half marathons, competed in a Ragnar trail relay, completed 2 different running series.  I am pretty proud of the physical accomplishments.  I also started a podcast, this blog, started playing the guitar again, I spent a shitload more time with my kids.  I was successful in my first full year in sales and work for a pretty good company.  Not bad, right?

For as many successes it felt like 2018 had, it almost feels like the mistakes, failures and setbacks were more.  Or perhaps it's just the perception that I have that made those "learning experiences," more overwhelming.  Perhaps the perceived and/or realized hurt from my failures is greater than the sum of good feeling I received from the successes.  The other theory would be the negativity bias or negativity effect.  Paraphrased it mean: things of equal intensity (positive, neutral & negative), things of a negative nature have a greater effect on our  mental state.  I was going to use the word psyche, instead of the term mental state, but I didn't want you to think I was too scholarly.  Self deprecation is something I am quite adept at...  In the grand scheme of things I didn't have that many failures.  Let's see: I put myself in bad spot financially accruing quite a bit of debt, went back and forth on smoking, a good deal of self loathing and lying by omission.  These are things that I'm sure many people live with, manage, shove down or just face and conquer each and every day.

For me those failures lead me down a pretty dark path there for a bit.  If the tone of the previous sentence comes off as flippant,  I assure you it is not meant that way.  I had days where keeping it together was about all I could do.  There were days that I could not keep it together at all.  Where I wanted to run away and just crawl in a hole.  I had long stretches of feeling like I had no value as a human, no self-worth and feeling less than that as a father and husband.  Days and weeks where I felt that all I brought anywhere was just a heavy  burden, defeated attitude and pain.  It's a lonely place to be.  Yet, here I am writing about it.  I haven't done it alone.  There's been lots of help from professionals and through my recovery program.  As well as a not so gentle nudge from my wife.  I'm not out of the woods yet, but I can see clearer and know where the perils and pitfalls are by using what I've learned.  I wrote in a previous post that I am literally and figuratively changing the stories I tell myself.  This helps tremendously.  And writing!  Fuck man, writing is one of the greatest outlets for me!  I am able to get thoughts out of my head without interference or interruption.  Often times I find I get turned around with thoughts in a conversation with how my brain works...especially if there's conflict.  God damn, that is a lot of this post dedicated to negativity.  Ironic.

Let me see if I can wrap this thing up nice and neat for you all.  I am glad for the path that I have led to this point of life.  I have learned and continue to learn, on a daily basis, where I want to go and where I want to be.  I have also learned just as much, if not more, on where I want to leave behind.  As of right now we are in the middle of the second day of 2019 and I already feel like I've accomplished a ton.  Look above, yeah earlier in the post, I did something new for me.  I didn't skirt around my issues with vagueries.  That is a very meaningful accomplishment for me!  I set up a YouTube page for the podcast and should be setting up a website with my own domain in order to tie everything together.  I have already decided I am making some sort of production and I'm currently bouncing the ideas around.  Good news is that I'm just about out of fucks to give with regard to what others think, which at this point couldn't come soon enough.  I realize that I am a human being that is fallible and I make mistakes.  Sometimes those mistakes seem so overwhelmingly fucking gigantic I can't figure out how I will ever recover.  But, alas, truly what doesn't kill me makes me stronger.  So here's some of what I'm going to do in 2019- I am going to have more fun, put things in the proper perspective and hit play!