To the anonymous sweet people (or maybe just person) that sent me a few encouraging comments over the past year, bless you. You are very kind to care about a random stranger on the other end of the internet who disappeared. I hope you are doing well too and that you are living your best life. And if you are not, I wish you peace and light and love on your journey toward it.
I expected to drop off a little on blogs and videos after starting a programming job again, but I definitely dropped off more than I was hoping. I found that after a long day in front of the computer I didn't necessarily want to spend more time in front of one. That has caused some internal conflict over the past year though, because I love working on projects and neglecting that love has left a bit of a hole.
I'm starting to figure out a way to do both, but it's a tricky balancing act that teeters between hyper-focus burnout and panicked avoidance. I haven't fallen off either side yet though, and I'm feeling good about the few tricks and practices that've kept me upright. Here are some of the things that have helped me maintain the enthusiasm to work on my own projects while having a full-time job:
- Morning pages 📃
- A strong Why for why I do it 🪨
- Breaking goals into tiny pieces 🧩
- Time every day for projects (even if it's only 15 minutes) 🕰️
- Presence, aka chilling out 🧘♀️
And despite the fact that I haven't posted in a year, I did make a few fun updates to this site! Here's a list of them:
- Posts are now formatted with ✨ markdown ✨
- Security vulnerabilities have been patched 🏥
- A Rive rabbit creature that can look at you now lives on the home page 🐰
- Tech logos now have a shadcn tooltip 👁️🗨️
Some of these updates have been around for awhile (like the markdown one), but the rabbit was introduced just a couple weeks ago, and the tech logo tooltips were done this last weekend. I say that to try and convince myself that I've been around and that I never really went anywhere, but all I can hear is Mark Manson saying,
Happy people don't need to tell themselves they're happy
or something like that, so I guess I haven't really been around. Whatever though, I am now! And I'm proud of my shy silly self for getting back out here, even if it has taken a year.
Unrelatedly related, Thor at Pirate Software is really cool and makes Youtube shorts that are mines (the exploding kind) for doom scrolling and contain wonderful advice for creators that may be struggling to create their stuff. He also shares a lot of cursed knowledge. I appreciate you Mr. Thor, even if you are the reason why I know what chainsaws were originally invented for.