A review of 2018

2018 saw a lot of changes in my life and mostly for the better.

Still nursing my recovering broken ankle, I started the year with one resolution (actually made in early December of the previous year). Always have something to look forward in the calendar.   That's an adaptation of what I think I read in Happy Money ie you can increase the happiness value of an experience by introducing some anticipation.

That started with trying out circus skills - and it developed into a hobby proper as I quickly found it was the right balance of encouraging mind-body connection, building upper body strength, flexibility of body and mind and finding a new community. I started attending a weekly class in aerial hoop and slowly progressed to advanced level, participated in a workshop with a world champion and took part in a group performance as part of the studio's Xmas showcase.  Gymnastics had always appealed as a kid, but lacking the upper body strength to climb a rope as well as coordination more generally meant my teachers lost interest very quickly.

Speaking of world champions, I also hassled Olympic cyclist Chris Hoy at a conference where he was speaking and came away with a signed copy of his autobiography for a colleague's secret Santa.

Writing wise, I managed to blog a review about every book and film I'd read/watched in 2018. I didn't manage to write too many inspirational blog posts.

On the work front, I changed jobs and departments while remaining at the same organisation. The new role - focussing on innovation - is a good fit for my skillset and experience. I also went part-time and did less work-related travel.  Sadly, I didn't spend as much time in the Fab Lab. Hopefully, I'll come up with a project for 2019.

More sadly, I lost a good friend in Jeff.  Jeff was an inspirational yoga teacher and while I was a pretty terrible pupil (only occasionally attending his classes on the lawn at the local castle), I always admired his gentle self-deprecating approach to life.  I was grateful to work with him on his last building project - what I teasingly called his yoga shed in his back garden. I learned a lot about facing death and wood working in those months.

There was a trip abroad to the Netherlands to catch up with an old friend as well as take the missus to see the tulip fields.

Community was another strong theme in 2018. Having become distinctly middle aged, I felt like I needed a wider variety of acquaintances and friends to bring differing perspectives and challenges. I took up mountain biking with a local group of middle aged plus mostly chaps and have slowly got better at downhills and enjoyed many evenings in various North Wales pub talking shit. I also joined a newly formed book group. They are a great bunch with a diverse range of perspectives of what makes a good read.  Lastly special mention to the women of my aerial hoop classes who've advanced my understanding of modern feminism and social justice considerably.

Insomnia remained a problem, but having acquired many tools, seems to be slowly fixing itself.  Perhaps related to this, I tweaked my diet to improve the amounts of fresh fruit and veg being consumed as well focussed on a couple of key supplements.

I bought a woodland. Admittedly, it is a tiny one but it should provide lots of opportunities. Not least to wield my new battery powered chainsaw.

Wrapping up, I tried learning Welsh via Duolingo but lost momentum about midway through the year. Something to return to in 2019. Similarly, my project to read a children's classic a week somewhat slowed too as I got bogged down in the still unfinished Robinson Crusoe.  Ditto the non-fiction book a day project and learning to build a mind palace.

 Mediation via Headspace continued to help maintain my mental health as did continuing to reduce my news diet, culling various websites and apps from my phone.

Looking back, 2018 seems to have been a good year with plenty of interesting experiments.