Since my father passed away in February of ’22, my mind and heart have been screaming for me to slow down and take a break. Instead, I pushed harder and faster, thinking that I was okay, but as the end of ’23 approached, I realized that I had only fooled myself.

This year has been one of me constantly being sick and stressed; I’ve greyed more in this year than the previous 42. I’ve been in physical therapy for Posterior Tibial Tendonosis for the majority of the year after being in and out of the boot for over a year. I know what it feels like to literally break down.

I have it worse than some people and a lot better than many, and I try not to lose sight of that.

With all this being said, here is my end-of-2023 goals for these last couple of weeks:

1. Trim my podcasts down to a few daily/weekly podcasts and no more than one binge of a whole season at a time. I’ve gone from over 30 down to these 10, and while it’s still a lot, they tend to be spaced out nicely.

   • Accidental Tech Podcast (ATP) Bootleg Edition- Weekly
   • Acquired - Varies
   • CodeNewbie- Weekly (Seasonal)
   • Founders- Weekly
   • Hip Hop, Beats & Thangs w/ Fiesta & K-Hill- Varies
   • Radio Rental - Weekly (Seasonal)
   • Ratchet & Respectable - 2x Weekly
   • Revisionist History - Varies (Seasonal)
   • The Talk Show w/ John Gruber - Varies
   • Techmeme Ride Home - Daily

2. Do the same thing with my TV shows, but I’m not sure of the exact ratio yet. Mainly because shows vary in # of episodes and run at different times.

   • I started to list all of my shows out of Television Time App, and then I realized I have over 75 shows, so yeah, I’m trimming now.
   • Update: I’m down to 34, and most of these shows are coming up on their last seasons or have a long time between seasons. So I think I’m good here.

3. I’ve got 2 more months of free credits from Audible, and then I’m stopping my collection of audiobooks. I’m going to work through my list of unfinished books (32) in 2024, and I should have enough time with my podcast commitment limited.

4. The hardest thing is passing this AWS CCP Exam on Sunday, then diving right into learning all of SQL so I can pass Data Applications all before the last day of the year when my term ends at school. Then I’m taking a 3-month break to let life settle down before I jump back in and finish my IT Management BS and then do my MS.

We’ll see how this goes.

As I was sitting in church today at a Men’s Day service with Brothers from my Lodge I realized that as many valleys as I’ve walked through or been carried through by Him I never took time to look back.

People will tell you to not look back in life but I realized today that sometimes when you hit those peaks before heading into the next valley you gotta take a moment and look back to see how far you’ve come.

I know I’ve spent a lot of time in my life just trying to push through until I could catch a breather but as I look back on the last 43 years… I have to acknowledge the beauty in the struggle as well as the highs.

But then again that’s how it is in the physical peaks and valleys. You reach a peak and the contrast and depth between the peaks you see before you and the valleys that go between them create the beauty of the picture.