†

“If it costs you your peace, it is too expensive.” – Paulo Coelho.

“It’s messing people up, this social pressure to “find your passion” and “know what it is you want to do”. It’s perfectly fine to just live your moments fully, and marvel as many small and large passions, many small and large purposes enter and leave your life. For many people there is no realization, no bliss to follow, no discovery of your life’s purpose. This isn’t sad, it’s just the way things are. Stop trying to find the forest and just enjoy the trees.” – Sally Coulter

“Skinny Bitch.” – Chris Bumstead

“God will give you a lot of things in life, but he’s not going to give you your jump shot. Only hard work will do that.” – Ray Allen

“If you spend your time chasing butterflies, they’ll fly away. But if you     spend your time building a beautiful garden, the butterflies will come.     And if they don’t, you will still have that beautiful garden.” - Unknown

 2022, I (finally) gave up competitive dodgeball, which was the biggest part of my life for a long, long time.

Tried out a little coding, didn’t like it (shit was boring).

Played a lot of Valorant, liked it a lot (shit was fun).

Created some content, it was OK (shit was A LOT OF WORK if you wanted to do it well, especially learning how to edit from scratch + ideation).

Did a little bodybuilding, and a little of a lot of things, exploring an identity  crisis outside of dodgeball.

Hit 250k milestone this year, but I didn’t feel anything at all actually. Maybe comparison is the thief of joy, but no, I don’t think that was it. Maybe money & material just isn’t that great of a motivator for me. Initially thought freedom from the labour market would be the END ALL, but with further examination, not even that, maybe freedom to pursue my own purpose – because I don’t think I would stop labouring even if I did reach that. I think I have a general idea of my pipe dream (search: Alphaland) , a 15 / 20 / 30 year aspiration which may never ever ever ever come to life, but along this year I realised, that’s OK. Goalposts move all the time, and ultimately you decide what’s best for you. Oh well.