2016 Goals Part V:  Independance, Love, and Toxicity 

My final (I hope) piece on my 2016 goals is sort of a catch all for a few subjects.

In Part I I reflected on my failures in 2015, and talked about financial stuff for 2016. Part II I talked about health, Part III I talked about dating, and Part IV I talked about the projects I want to complete.  This one covers the rest of it – though, that doesn’t mean it’s all my goals for 2016, nor are any of the goals presented in order of importance.  For instance, financial goals was mentioned in Part I, but Love here in Part V is a higher priority item, but it was harder to put my thoughts on the subject together coherently.

Independence

One of the reasons the finance portion is so important, it’s time for me to gain my independence again this year.  I’m living with some great people, but I’m taking up space I think would be better utilized in another way, and I feel like a drain on the situation.

Now, where I’m at wasn’t supposed to be a long-term solution.  It was supposed to be fairly short term, really, but things went weird.  I’m not going to fully explain it, because it makes it sound like I’ve been screwed over by a friend in the process (at the very latest, I should have been out of here by September of last year – that was a promise.)  The truth is, life happened – they had a number of things happen in their lives, and I suppose I could be crappy about it, but why do that to a friend?  Let them get their stuff together and handled.

Meanwhile, that means I’m laying out the plan for moving to a new place in Wichita.  I’m still in planning phases, though – until I get some financial stuff handled, there’s no way I’ll be able to pull it off the way I need to (and with a little bit of security that I wouldn’t end up homeless in a couple of months).  But, I’m already working on that, on multiple fronts.

But, it goes further than just where I live.  I’m tired of depending on customers to pay their bills inside the standard model, so I’m launching a new brand and a new way of doing business for development.  I’m also going to focus more on in-house projects if I can get that brand launched – the way I have it planned, if I can get that to have some steam, that pays for the time necessary to do more development for games and apps of my own, breaking the contractor paycheck cycle of abuse.  The hardest part is launching some of this stuff: if I had around $4k in the bank, I’d have the marketing capitol I needed to pull this off.  I’ll just have to be a bit more creative. 🙂

Love

The world is getting uglier.  People have found their voices, and have begun surrounding themselves with only people that think the same as they do on places like Facebook.  Slowly, we weed out media and people who have opposing views.  On the surface, it sounds like a great idea.

I have an opposing view of this.  By segregating ourselves to the point where we only see ideas that match or own, we start “buying in” to other ideas easier from those people.  Racism, for instance, becomes a much easier process, when you agree with someone, and then they start posting stuff that’s a little more racist.  Bad idea don’t win instantly – they win over time, slowly but surely eroding reasonable thoughts.  Racism is just one example – sometimes it’s “anyone who believes other than me is an idiot”, and people share it around.

So, I keep my Facebook feed filled with all sides I can find.  For a while, this made me quite angry – some of the shit I see is just of the top stupid (and if you think I’m pointing at conservative or liberal posts, you’re wrong:  it’s both.)  I used to debate quite a bit of this, but around November of last year, I started pulling back.  There’s a problem with my approach:  it doesn’t match the approach of the rest of my life, which is based on love, peace, and respect.

I took a while, and thought it through, and am coming back in 2016 with a much different approach.  I’ll try my best to address all of these opinions with love, peace, and respect, and encourage others to do the same.  Yes, I’m trying to change the world, and yes it’s a fool’s errand.

And, after writing that, I decided to not deleted it, but to clarify it a bit:  address the person with love, peace, and respect.  They are still a human being, and should be treated as such.  But, a racist idea, for instance, is still a racist idea – something that should be pointed out, and debated.  Each person we talk to online is a human being.  They are our neighbor.  They are part of our past, present, and future.  Why would we treat them poorly?   There are times where you’ll meet people that you need to keep some distance from (see my next section on Toxicity), and that’s understandable – but, even then, you don’t have to be a dick about it.  Identifying when it’s time to do that is difficult, of course.

Even with my love, peace, and respect approach, I’m going to piss people off.  These days, if your opinion is anything other than their opinion, you’ve automatically pissed a certain number of people.  You offend their belief that they are correct, no matter what.  Well, I’ll play my part by my rules, and if it pisses someone off, so be it.  There’s only so much I can do to help change the world.

But, that’s not all the love I’m talking about.  I tried hard in 2015 to be there for those that needed me, even if it was something as simple as a ride.  In 2016, well, I’ll keep doing that.  Be it a ride, a helping hand, a shoulder to cry on, or a caring ear to lend.  I was there for a lot of people in 2015 (and a lot of them were there for me), and I have no intent of doing anything less than improving that availability in 2016.

Toxicity

I’m fairly careful who I let into certain circles of trust in my life.  You could pretty much draw a set of rings, and I could tell you which people fall in what area, because I really do limit some people’s access to certain parts of my life.  I live with people who fit in the penultimate circle – the only one higher than that is reserved for significant others (and, even after they’ve left, they’re still allowed in that circle.  I’m weird that way.  And there’s even some “subdivisions” within that smallest circle.)  It’s hard to get into that circle, and it takes a lot of trust.  And, once there, it’s really hard to do something vile enough to be pushed out of that circle.  Part of that is because if I’ve trusted them enough to enter that circle, I highly doubt they have a personality that would allow them to do something like that – I trust them that much.  Morgan and Michal, for instance, aren’t the type to go out and start drama – they’ve been recipients of it many times, but they they limit it as much as possible.

But, over the years, I’ve had people who’ve managed to get into areas the no longer belong.  It’s hard to explain completely, but watching them, seeing what they say on Facebook, how they treat other people, and all that sort of thing, I realize they don’t belong in that area any further.  No, there’s no sit down talk about it – simply put, I’m pushing some of those people from ranges like “close friend” and “friend” back in to acquaintance.  And, some people seem to think they are in circles other than what they are really in (I’m sure everyone’s met someone who thinks they are one of your really close friends, but in reality, they’re not someone you seek out to spend time with.)

Some of those folks have become toxic.  They don’t realize it, but they have.  Some have gone out of their way to do things like talk about others behind their back.  Just… drama crap.  So, they’ll get pushed into the lower circles, and I’ll be healthier because of it.

On the flip side of that, though, there’s some people I intend to spend just a bit more time talking to – they are people that I value, but rarely get the chance to talk to.  And, there’s old friends I need to reconnect with a bit, who still maintain their place in the circle they used to (sign of a solid friendship:  when you move apart, but in your heart, they’re still in the same place they were before, and when you see them again, you pick up where you left off.)  It’s time to spend a little more energy on that.

So, what have I done?

• Talk is cheap.  What have I done to start moving towards those goals?  Sure, it’s only three days into the new year, but no need to drag my feet:
• The battery on my old eCig was almost toast, so I took the plunge and purchased a new one.  A much better one than I’ve ever owned before.  And with that, I quit smoking (stuff like how much flavor and vapor there is when I take a drag makes a big difference to me.  If there’s not much taste, and not much vapor, it’s not a replacement for smoking.)
• I updated my Tinder profile to something slightly more serious.  I didn’t kill the picture of me in a kilt at the ren fest, for instance, but I did push it down from being the lead image.  I also updated the profile text – but, I still make it known I’m geeky.  There’s no reason to resort to false advertising.
• I started my workouts again.
• I laid groundwork towards improving my financial situation.
• I worked on part of the projects that need to get done.

Not bad for three days in to the new year.