2024: My Annual Review (w/Dreamsetting) | #138

Valued Shareholder,

Another trip around the sun has almost been and gone and the Edward Says Substack is heading for it’s 5th calendar year. Hard to believe. My first post came way back in 2021, and I did my first annual review at the end of 2022, followed by another in 2023. As is customary, I am therefore back again to take a look back at my year, albeit with a slightly different format, more focused on questions than headings, partially stolen from RadReads blogger and all-round gentleman Khe Hy.

As a sneak preview, I can tell you that it was a fair to middling year, but perhaps a better one than the year before. Based on this trajectory, shareholders can anticipate further improvement as we move onto next year…but for now let’s stick to looking backwards and reviewing 2024.

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What were your biggest personal and professional wins this year?

Personal – Making a reasonably solid new group of friends as an adult, a feat which is harder than it seems. The key to this was having a regular place and a reason to meet, which is perhaps why my efforts to reconnect with old friends didn’t go as swimmingly as making new friends, since it felt like there was too much friction to keep things going without a common cause.

Another personal win is that I more or less gave up drinking. I am not teetotal, but it was certainly the year when I drank the least, by far. More important than the overall volume of alcohol consumed, was the fact that I went out many times without drinking and had a good time nonetheless.

Professional – moving into a new job which is similar to roles in which I worked previously, but which feels very qualitatively different because I picked up skills in my last employment which help me to see things in a different way.

What was your proudest moment in staying true to your values?

I quit my job this year. I’ve actually quit quite a lot of jobs, but it was a bit different as the role I was doing had a lot of upside and was good for my career very broadly, if I stayed within the niche. I ended up quitting and going back to more conventional work, much to the surprise of many. Much of my work was about strategic planning and involved a lot of intense meetings and dealing with internal and external business people, which wasn’t always enjoyable. In the end, after I left, they asked me to consult ongoingly on a part-time basis, which is good as I get to keep doing the parts I enjoyed while avoiding much of what was drudgery for me. I have now incorporated this sole trader work into a company.

What small actions have brought you a disproportionate amount of joy this year?

I have a few of these. Digging a pond, something which I like to harp on about, has brought me continuing joy, since I first turned the sod on it last year, and properly fixed it this year. It looks different in every season and, dormant now, it has a kind of still and latent beauty, but once February rolls around, it will begin to show signs of rebirth again.

I stopped tracking my expenses and now I just roughly eyeball things. I am less anal about small and medium-sized expenditures. I bought a smoothie maker and a juicer. I bought a Leatherman Wave multi tool which I use for almost everything, and it’s amazing. I started going to bed earlier.

What was the biggest challenge to your identity?

This year, I failed quite badly in my attempt to write a novel, despite having a breakthrough earlier in the year which I thought would lead to success.

I like to think of myself as a writer who got stuck in a medical job, but my inability to cobble something together, without any real respectable excuse, was a bit of a blow to the ego which I’m still struggling with. Am I really a writer? I’m still dealing with the downwind after effects of all this, and trying to figure out what to do next year (see Looking forward section, below).

What’s an important relationship that you haven’t been tending to enough?

Excuse the cliche, but it really is my relationship to my self. It was another year of psychological overhead, of sticking my head above the water level, only to be submerged again. Every year, I threaten to take meditation, breath work, or some kind of spiritual practice, seriously, and every year, I flunk on it. Hoping for better next year.

Which relationships became stronger or more meaningful, and what contributed to that?

A relative of mine has been quite unwell and basically spent the whole year in hospital. Helping her with various things, and visiting her, brought us together quite closely. It’s odd how struggle and suffering can sometimes bring people, particularly family together, but it’s also sad that it takes a negative to bring out the best in people, sometimes. Overall, I’m glad that our relationship is stronger now.

What were your biggest physical challenges?

I had an operation this year on my hip, which followed on another operation on a more long-term knee problem. Going from being very fit and healthy to being a little unsteady on the feet was a huge physical, as well as psychological blow. In the last couple of months I’ve made gains again, and started to feel slightly like the old me, but it’s a long road ahead.

Did you notice areas where scarcity thinking held you back?

I’ve been trying to buy a house which makes me very jumpy with my investments in the stock market, and overly cautious, despite a booming year. I don’t like to be motivated by fear in that way, I guess it stems from a type of scarcity. I also seem to struggle to look past the decision to enter the housing market – I’m sure that if and when I buy, my monkey mind will immediately begin to dwell on the next stressor, such as the mortgage payment or something I don’t like about the house. Or maybe I won’t, because I’ll be meditating.

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Things I did and did not do

I started swimming a bit more, and cycling.

I went to Switzerland, New York, Spain.

I got better at German.

I air fried the heck out of most of my meals.

I tried new styles of coaching.

I had a bespoke jacket made.

I made birdhouses.

I used AI.

I (technically) set up a company.

I dialled up my style a notch.

I did not move house.

I did not eat much meat.

I did not enter a relationship.

I did not read much.

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Looking Forward

What energises me most about my work, and how can I do more of that?

There seems to be opportunities in my new job to use some of the diplomatic and communication skills I learned in my old job, to act as a sort of intermediary between certain departments. That interests me.

What would I like to be known for by this time next year?

To have written a fecking novel draft at last.

What's one assumption about my capabilities that I'd like to challenge?

I want to hold a dinner party soon, as part of a general plan to bring people together. It’s well within my capabilities, but something that I’m still shy of doing. It’s the kind of thing I want to do regularly. If I had a good place, I would try to set up some kind of rolling activity, eg every Sunday a pizza night at my house, or similar.

What are some specific plans for next year?

I have a few. I want to sort out my writing. To this end, I am toying with the idea of continuing my weekly subscription here, while trying to write a weekly serialised novel for subscribers, in an attempt to force myself to write fiction productively and frequently. Even if not a single person reads it, at the end of the year I would in theory have at least 52 passages or chapters. If you are interested, let me know friend.

Personally, I also want to move my body more, in sympathetic ways. 2025 will be the year of further recuperation for my body, hopefully, and maybe a year when I get back to fun things like sports and dance, and maybe a year, so help me God, that I buy a house. Here’s hoping!

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Dreamsetting

Have you heard of fearsetting? It’s an exercise where you think about the worst possibilities which can eventuate from a situation, and come to terms with them. More times than not, you realise they are more tolerable and less worrisome than you realised, and acknowledging this empowers you to carry through your course of action.

I’m conscious that there is a fair bit of fear in this review, or looking at worst case scenarios, so I wanted to end on a positive note. Instead of fearsetting, how about dreamsetting? What are the best possible scenarios which could occur? Simple twists of fate which would make all your problems dissolve overnight? Happenstances which would relegate your anxieties to mere insignificant trifles. With this in mind, I have written some dreamsetting scenarios below.

– What if my fiction writing fell into place this morning and I opened a new stylistic vein which carries me through to the end of the manuscript?

– What if I bump into somebody tomorrow on the street who becomes a new friend or lifelong partner?

– What if my dream house, within my budget, goes on the market tomorrow?

– What if my body responds more positively than expected to the demands which I impose upon it?

– What if a new role opens up at work which combines the best of both of the professional worlds which I currently straddle?

– What if I begin to meditate frequently and experience a peace of mind unexpected in the common hours?

– What, gentle reader, if…?

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