What am I up to now?

Let me take you through the steps and maybe we can figure this out together.

I hate New Year's Eve and always have. When asked about it I usually go with the old argument of it being a rookie day for drunks and how I spend most of the night befuddled by people taking advantage of this magical day of celebration by drinking themselves to oblivion.

It's not that I'm better than that, it's that these are the same people that I drank myself to oblivion with the night before. And what are our plans for tomorrow with these people? Wake up early and start drinking mimosas all day. NewYear's eve is how we spend most of our free time only now there are additional a-holes to navigate around.

That's not the real reason I hate it though. The true reason I hate New Year's is that I've always been single during this time of year so every New Year's kiss is another reminder that I'm alone. I'm also an aspiring writer with no real goals in my life other than to be able to make a living with my writing. Every tick of the clock is a reminder that another year is about to pass me by and now I have to come up with a new excuse as to why I have yet to be discovered. (Granted I put all my effort into the writing and almost zero effort into self-promotion but this is the mindset I end up in because of this day of nostalgia.)

This year I spent New Year's alone and happy. I was down in San Diego visiting my family. Everyone had plans and they understood why I didn't want to tag along. I had the place to myself to sit and write as if it were just another day.

I do like New Year's Day though. I like to strategize and do get caught up in making resolutions. I don't usually announce my resolutions, but I always make them.

Last year I resolved to get more of my writing out to the public, which led to this website, which led to my 52 weeks of Southland Tales challenge. This is a project that I had a blast doing and am very proud to have made it all the way through without missing a single deadline (actually I have a month left and this parenthetical will disappear as soon as I do complete the challenge.)

According to Google Analytics, this year I had 2,676 views, from 6 continents, 45 countries, and 43 states. All this without putting much effort into promoting the page.

I consider this a success, at least enough of a success to make continuing to create content on of my resolution for 2014. With my Southland Tales reviews coming to an end I had to figure out a new project to bring in the readers. 

I had a couple of projects in mind but nothing stood out as a cohesive project that would 1) force me to have deadlines to make sure that I'm constantly coming up with new content or 2) create a reason for readers to check in more than casually in hopes that I made an update.

As the clock struck midnight and I found myself living in the window of time between a day that I dread the most and a day that I can tolerate at best, so I started goofing around on Facebook.

Then I fell asleep.

I woke the next morning and still being alone I turned to Facebook to see what everyone was up to. (I do understand that others don't think like me and enjoy hearing stories of how people choose to celebrate.)

That's when I posted this.

I took a nap almost instantly after hitting "post," failing my first resolution within an hour of making it, but it got me thinking about what my next project was going to be. I started researching things that I could do daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, anything that I could build a routine around and share my finding with you, the reader.

Then I found and shared this link along with this post.

I wrote this as a joke at first but then the reality of my reasoning began to sink in. I literally have been living every day as if it were my last for a long time and it hasn't been as positive of an experience as the YOLO yellers make it out to be.

I kind of cringe whenever anyone asks me how I ended up in Seattle. The true story is convoluted, confusing, and depressing for those who don't suffer from any mental disorders. I normally just say that it was a random move to escape my hometown then follow it up with the funny aspects of my venture to the Pacific North West.

The true story is that I found a lump on my right testicle when I was around 20. I came from a chaotic upbringing, have lived, to this day, dealing with untreated depression, and truly had a punk rock, I don't give a fuck about tomorrow mentality. I also just discovered alcohol which was the perfect partner for the self-destructive dance I was about to begin.

Rather than do anything about this lump I decided to sell everything I owned and in the style of Leaving Las Vegas moved away from everyone who cared about me that might try to stop me from this race that I started in my head between whether I was going to passively take myself out through avoidance, or passive-aggressively take myself out with an "accidental" overdose of alcohol. I've never made an active attempt at suicide, but if it were to have happened I was fine with that.

As dark and depressing as that may sound I was having a blast, nothing bothered me, I was living every day as if it were my last. The fact that I'm bipolar helped fuel this fire. My manic side earned me a lot of fans, my twisted sense of humor and my laissez-faire relationship with life and death led me into many interesting situations and people like to hear stories.

Not everyone was a fan, but at that time I was in a mindset that I would rather die a hero to five than remembered by zero. At least that's how I wanted that world to see me. I was a young, dumb, inexperienced drunk and late in the night the mask would start to fall off and all of my anger, fear, and sorrow would flood out revealing what it looks like to live every day as if it were my last.

That was years ago and for the most part, I'm in better control of my life, at least I'm getting better at hiding those personality traits even if that means literally hiding from the world in my little apartment.

One of the fun things about self-help is you never really know if you're doing it right. I am in a better place than I've ever been in before, but I still have warped coping mechanisms in dealing with loss and failure. Sometimes I slip back into living for the end, but at least I know when I'm doing it and when I see the signs I know that things will get better once I ride it out.

I don't know how hopeful this sounds but these are the steps that got me to where I am right now, ready to live every day as if it were the first day of something new and promising. I'll let that last day catch me off guard.

Until then let the fun begin.

I will be posting a brand new resolution every day of 2014.

  • I will then have one year from the date that I posted said resolution to complete the task.

  • All resolutions will be posted with the start date and the due date.

  • Resolutions will be:

    • Daily tasks.

    • Weekly tasks.

    • Monthly tacks.

    • Quarterly tasks.

    • Tasks that just have to be finished within a year.

  • Resolutions will move into the progress section once I actually start working on them.

  • Certain resolutions will have built-in loopholes in case I fall behind due to circumstances that are out of my control. (IE if I have a daily task and am unable to keep up, rather than give up on an otherwise positive or productive task, I will give myself a time frame in which I can play catch up. These loopholes will be announced along with the resolution.)

  • Because of these loopholes, there will be four levels of success and failure.

    • Success!!!

    • Success with * (for those tasks that I needed to use a loophole)

    • Failure with * (for those tasks I backed out of for a good reason.)

    • Failure...

  • I will credit those who suggest a resolution that I end up using.

  • I will credit those who help to fulfill any of these resolutions.

  • I will only be posting the initial resolution and the outcomes on my personal Facebook page. If you are interested in following a project I will be posting everything on TheWickerBreaker's Facebook page and Twitter.

  • Thought I plan to post at least my resolutions and any daily challenge on a daily basis being that this may now always be feasible it will not equal a fail if I don't as long as I am doing the work and getting the updates posted in a reasonable amount of time.

  • I will add to this list as needed.

I've been posting my daily resolutions on my personal Facebook page and by the time you read this, I will have completed resolution #13.

I look forward to sharing the next couple of years with you!

Thanks,

Bunker