2016 in review

2016, politically, has seen two culture and life changing global events that have, frankly, contributed a great deal of stress into my life - Brexit and Trump. To the point where I've effectively had to bail on the news and filter both terms out of my social media life - for my own mental well being.

In my mind, these are both catastrophic turning points for Britain and the world. I have written countless in depth articles and not published them. I have ranted about the Investigatory Powers bill, and how insane such things are when you can't guarantee a right-wing nut job like Trump isn't going to end up in control of it. I've despaired at the rise of racism, intolerance and fear. I've fumed at how all of this is an obvious result of awful political strategies over the last decade and more. It seems clear as day that - globally - we will soon enter an era where there is massive unemployment and we shall need Universal Income; but that Britain has put itself in the worst possible position to achieve it. I despair that the Tory strategy to defund and privatise the NHS is working. I despair at how the general population is letting these things happen. I am amazed at the utter lack of consequences for politician's blatant, provable, lying. There is obvious manipulation and corruption on so many levels in so many places and it's as though it's out in the open, no one cares, and there are therefor no consequences.

And then we have Russia and the US both wanting to increase their nuclear arms capabilities.

My powerlessness to do anything about any of these utterly huge and catastrophic problems is something I've had to accept, and all I can think to do now is forget it and try effecting things on a local level instead.

Work goals in review

Here, at least, there were some positives. I've managed to migrate us from an SVN workflow to GIT, and it's working well with the exception of needing a review of the go-live strategy. There's a new development server and set up script that's working well, and we've improved our Craft CMS skills a lot this year. In general, we're more productive and producing better work, with happier clients. Score.

Personal goals in review

Yeah this one didn't go well. I managed to get some jogging in for a couple of months, and a little cycling. I've made good progress on a woodworking bench which really should have been completed by summer given when I started it. But that's it. It has been a monumentally hard year mentally and emotionally, and I have not done well. At all. At least it feels like it's starting to turn now.

2017

I'm setting goals low, but in many ways I feel like 2017 is wide open in ways that you don't often get in life. I have a feeling this is going to be a year where I'll be doing a lot of groundwork for some major changes. Certainly there's a lot which I'm questioning and searching for answers about, and this on its own feels like progress.

At the very least, I want to end 2017 with a concrete actionable plan with deadlines and goals to get where I want to be. And I want to have things going on during that which count as "living life now" rather than framing everything as a future objective and sacrificing "now" to achieve that always-in-the-future goal.

I want to get a dog.