2024: Shut Up and Build
What’s Stopping Us Building the Life We Want to Live? Let’s Do That in 2024.
Talofa, reader,
Happy New Year, or as we say in Samoan: Manuia le tausaga fou!
As my end-of-2023 post laid out…
…it was a year of firsts.
I’m nothing if not regularly trying new things.
Which is why the start of this year (most years actually) has me always feeling some type of way.
The new year often brings with it a sense of renewal, of energy, of conviction, and focus.
We get to planning everything and mapping out calendars and other planning notes.
When you've done as many cycles around the sun as I have, finding goals to achieve every new year is the easy part; there's a literal "whole world" of things to choose from.
The problem is paring things down to a few and driving those to a level of quality or success to be happy with.
Easy right?
There's the saying we often "overestimate what we can achieve in a year, and underestimate what can be achieved in ten years."
Over the years, I've often thought the problem was time management and employed all manner of technology and tools to help me achieve dozens of goals, each with their list of sub-goals.
From Toggl to Notion planners, Todoist, and various Chrome extensions for clipping and saving websites, images, multiple Google calendars with reminders, all in an effort to achieve a bunch of goals that realistically should have spanned several years, not one.
I learned about creating “systems” instead of goals, and atomic habits from James Clear.
I even started using Zettelkasten note-taking and learning about a second brain because I thought maybe if I got smarter more efficiently, I could use the smarter brain to work out why I wasn’t super fulfilled with the things I was doing.
It took a long time to come to the following realisation, and not to get all "zen" on us here for the start of 2024, but I think even practically in many other respects, this is the core reason for our lives going in the wrong direction:
If you don't know who you are, how will you ever know what you (the "real" you) want?
Obviously, the answer to that requires things way outside the scope of this newsletter (or any of my qualifications), but suffice to say, this point is central for directing you at least towards where you'd be happy.
Some call having this knowledge their "north star," or the thing that guides and keeps them on track.
When we don't have this north star, we run into trouble, even if we don't know it.
The Cost:Benefit Analysis of Ignorance
We get busy but never quite feel fulfilled; we achieve things but never seem truly happy with them.
We think it might just be a personality issue where we don't know how to stop and celebrate our achievements (been there, bought the T-shirt).
But even when all these things have been accounted for through personal development and professional help, if what you're doing with your life still doesn't sit right, my argument is that you haven't found the thing (or things) you were meant for.
Yes, this is all pretty high-minded thinking.
Like we're special snowflakes that fit perfectly into a massive cosmic design. Even if you don't view the world as intricately as that, just looking at how the systems in nature ebb and flow in time, season, and configuration with each other at least suggests that how we (humans) interact with our environment has some best practice, systems guidelines, and optimisations built-in - right?
And this isn't a search for "what makes you happy," even though that can certainly be one of the results of finding what you're meant to be doing.
I'll leave it to the gurus to explain why a "search for happiness" is a mug's game1.
I have to admit, I sit in a pretty privileged position to be able to ponder "what is the meaning of life?" and "what is my purpose here on earth?" like some Greek philosopher in a toga, whose agenda includes sitting around "thinking his thoughts" and maybe wrestling a few naked guys later in the day...
You can choose not to do this, and just go with what's in front of you, covering the basics: food, shelter, retirement, the end.
That's totally an option.
There's a reason why, at various points in our lives, we wrestle with the notion of what we're doing and if we should be doing something else, or doing something more.
Call it the human condition. I think we're a curious species.
It's something we know, deep down inside, but often only articulate in how we behave, i.e., trying to cram as much into life as we can (some of us, anyway).
It's the thing that adds urgency to our confused and searching state of being.
The thing we know is this:
life is finite.
We only have a limited amount of time here, and before we know it, our time is up.
Happy New Year! Lol, sorry.
Never Forget to Remember…
This isn't to be a downer - trust me - the stoics would reflect on the "impermanence of life" with the phrase "Memento mori," which means "remember you will die," as a way of reminding them never to take life and our time on earth for granted.
For me, that nagging thought and feeling in the back of my mind, after some time at a gig or a project, no matter how well I'm doing, in the quiet moments I'll often think I'm meant to be doing something else.
So that's how I'm starting my year, reflecting on where I should be focusing my talents, skills, time, and resources to find where I can combine them all to make the most impact.
That was a long way to get to reminding us to choose life, find a meaningful purpose on Earth, and remember we die so as not to take life so seriously or take it for granted.
That's pretty much the takeaway from this philosophical walk.
As deep a question as this may seem, where are you with knowing who you are and what you're meant to be doing with your life?
How are you starting your year?
Road Map 2024
My year, as the name of the newsletter suggests, is the year of the BUILD.
I've toyed with many projects and started many more but didn't follow through with plenty.
This year, I'm going to knuckle down on a few and see them through to the best of my ability.
A Common Occurrence of the Uncommon
The first project is this newsletter.
Setting and delivering a regular and consistent publishing schedule.
My goal is to market my newsletter to build subscriptions to 1k this year.
To my paid subscribers, firstly, thank you. I will be putting out a minimum of 2 newsletters a month.
The schedule is set.
On the 1st and 3rd Tuesday evening of each month, expect a newsletter.
Pasifika Tech's on TV
The second project is my YouTube channel, The Technesian Livestream:
Again, the goal is a regular and consistent content schedule to build our subscribers to 1k.
Our mission is to establish ourselves as Pasifika technical leaders and experts in our field.
Pasifika Tech Education Charity
Last but not least, the new programme we're building for Pasifika Tech Education Charity (PTEC) will roll out into the community for three school terms this year.
I'm excited to put the last few years' experience into this venture. It's a continuation and evolution of tech workshops and code clubs we've delivered in the past in the community.
That's the year.
It wouldn't be "me" if I didn't also have a few other side projects on the go. However, these three are the ones I'll be driving in some public capacity this year.
That's me.
I'd love to hear about your 2024 plans.
Thoughts?
Any questions, comments, or requests? For example, if you want to know my particular view on anything, please let me know.
I'd be happy to write about it if you find that valuable.
Thanks for reading. See you in the next one.
ia manuia,
Ron.
I’m afraid I subscribe to the school of “Happiness is an emotion” so it shouldn’t be a primary motivator in life.