2023 retrospective

Well, it is that time of year again. The year will soon be over. This time around, I have a lot going through my mind I will attempt to simplify. 2023 was a mixed bag. It can best be summarized by high success but also a long road of issues along the way.

I realize that a lot of people will read my ramblings but not actually comment which is fine. I don't normally like venting or speaking to the quire, but when it comes to retrospective thoughts - maybe it might mean something to someone. Maybe it might be interesting. I don't know.

There were many wrongs I righted this year in my opinion. I fixed a few friendships that went sour in previous years and it turned out okay in the end. If I had known that it wouldn't have been that hard to fix, I would have stuck to my word and fixed it a lot sooner. But it is what it is. It worked out. I think that's just the moral of the year. That things will work out in the end.

2023 was a year of a lot of conflict. I'm not going to get into the details, but it was a real messy year that may rival that of 2019. But unlike 2019 for me, it was recoverable. In a different way than one would think. It was not recoverable in the sense that things will go back to the way they used to be - but in the sense that there was a clear and present end to those issues, and that once they were dealt with there is going to be no repeating them. It's over with and done.

It is that which gets me thinking. That rather than look upon it negatively, I chose to look at it positively. In many aspects, when it comes to various friendships I have (or had) throughout time is that I aim to remember the good times for the good times, and not color them based on how they ended. The ends are an important matter, how something ends, is how it's legacy ends, forever. There is no going back and fixing it. With other friendships I was able to have a part in fixing what went wrong, but with some others, there is no possibility of recovery. When you interact with someone, you can never really be sure if that interaction you have will be the last one you have. Sometimes I look back on previous friendships for years past, and I realize that in hindsight that those friendships were fading out - but at the time I didn't realize it.

Why do I say this, and what does it have to do with 2023? Well, 2023 made me fully realize this process and get it into picture. When you know someone, you aren't sure how long that friendship is going to last. It may last months, years, or even a lifetime. But there is always this sense that lingers based on the era you find someone, it colors the friendship and nurtures it. That can only happen once. There is no "Recoloring" of something, once it's colored, there isn't anything that can be done to reverse it. At least that is the way that it has worked for me.

Throughout the year, the conflicts that I had resulted in a substantial change in my outlook on things. In 2022 I acted more impulsively, recklessly and created negative conflict. 2023 saw various relationships come to a height, then inevitable conflict arose that lead me to think that I shouldn't be wasting my time or spending my time with people who do not actively promote joy or harmony in my life. 2022, I sought to reconcile that by ruthlessly writing people out of my life, but 2023 taught me that the best way to go about that is to merely let things happen. Let things pass over, without active resistance and they will fade in time. There is no need for a "Grand finale", but rather, a quiet and slow fade away is rather poetic, in a sense?

I spent a lot of time, with the wrong people in 2023. I got swept into a lot of negativity and bad situations, but, I didn't know any better. Now, on the other end of that I've come to realize the warning signs of it and I know better to not get involved when I know that something isn't going to go in my favor. I'd rather have silence than deal with discord. I've also started to focus more on what I can change, rather than grand visions that I can't realistically control or have a say in. Things will pass, whether or not I am there to see it.

Who you interact with, and what you spend time on is like a grate. What you don't like, and who you don't like will inevitably fall through and fall away into distant memory, while what you do actively like stays up at the top and changes over time as situations come and go. 2023 saw a lot of conclusions to things that I believe needed to happen, and I am more than belated to see that in those situations, that things are much better than they've ever been.

I know what is worth my time, and I know what isn't. It's just the "Pulling yourself up, and sticking to your word" that is the hardest part. If I know it isn't worth my time, why bother? If I don't get the return I put in, why should I keep giving? Just seems to be a lot of obvious things I kept bashing my head against only to keep getting burned until I finally got it through to my mind's eye.

Moral of the story: Know the value of things before giving away freely.

Besides that, 2023 was a great year. I switched to Apple and quit using Windows, which has been much better for me personally. I don't miss Windows at all. I completely re-vamped my computer setup, my online profiles, etc. It was a very expensive thing to do, but it's something I aim to do only once. I also decided that using Android is absolutely unappealing and I switched back to using an Iphone, currently am using an Iphone 13. It is expensive, but for me it is more than worth it.

As I look out into the world at large - it isn't going to get any easier. 2023 has been a brutal year for the world, not as brutal as 2020 or 2021 but things aren't going to improve anytime soon I personally believe. This world really needs a miracle for things to get better. I have seen some things which I approve of, other things not so much. There is too much negativity, hatred, and division in this world.

2024 is going to be an entirely different beast than 2023 was. It will be far more volatile, active, and change inducing. At least that is the only real prediction I have. For my personal life, I expect 2024 to be far more work centered and focused around individuals who have proven themselves to be trusted. It's time to put my foot down and say, no messing around and wasting my time. This is it.



2023 was also a year of many great movies and newly discovered music for me, as well.