I don’t know how many times I’ve rededicated myself to improving myself, but one more time with feeling.
For over a decade now, I’ve struggled with depression. Depending on which doctor you talk to, I either have a depression order or a bipolar disorder leaning more towards depression. Regardless, I’ve been depressed for the past month plus. It’s normal for me, and I know how to deal with it, more or less. I’m not a danger to myself, but I don’t care for myself as I should. My grades have suffered. My work performance has suffered. My diet has suffered. My wallet has suffered. My friendships have suffered.
I’ll never “beat” depression. I’ll never be cured of it. It will always be a part of my life.
But, I can live with it. I can thrive with it. I can even use to better my world. The first step to this is getting myself healthier and more productive.
Basically, I have seven things I'd like to improve upon... They are:
- Eat better.
- Sleep better.
- Exercise.
- Study more.
- Absorb more.
- Produce more.
- Be a better friend.
Some of these are obviously directly connected to my health while others are more oriented at my long term goals. So, with that, what are my long term goals? While that’s something to explore in a post of its own, I have three big plans right now:
- Develop games.
- Own an Internet/Gaming cafe
- Develop software for the betterment of society.
I’m not sure which path I’m going to go down yet, so I’m doing my best to improve in all categories.
With that, I think it’s time I expanded upon each individual objective and detail exactly what I want out of myself.
1. Eat Better
I’ve been vegan for nearly five years now. I’ve had my setbacks here and there. Depression can make cooking or preparing simple meals a challenge. Fast food is so convenient. And all of those things are simply excuses. So, from here on, I’m rededicating myself to the my own ideals in veganism.
This means:
- No fast food. Period.
- More care at restaurants and such. Yeah, that rice probably has egg in it. Let’s get something else.
- No grabbing an easy snack at work (that’s not vegan). Just bagels for me. Or I can bring my food.
Those are all simply what I need to do as far as the vegan side of my diet is concerned. While cutting out all fast food, even vegan options, does dramatically improve my diet, I also need to work on what I’m actually eating.
So:
- Cut down on sugary foods. No more cinnamon sugar toast for breakfast.
- Cook more balanced meals. This is difficult with my limited budget and nearly empty pantry, but I can do it.
- Take food with me when I go to class and work. Okay, so no brainer with the no fast food thing, right? Well, I still need to eat.
I think that’s about it for my diet. It’s basically just eat better vegan food. I can do that.
2. Sleep Better
This one has been tricky this semester. I’ve bounced somewhere between getting a regular 7 to 8 hours of sleep to getting 4 or 5 a night and then to getting 10 or 11 hours… It’s not good for me. Depression can call for more sleep, but I’m not sure how effective it is when I constantly bounce between so many different sleep schedules.
From here on, I’m going to aim for 7 hours of sleep a night. My plan is to go to sleep at 1 and wake up at 8. That should give me plenty of time to get ready for class regardless of what day, and should help me strike a good balance between work, school, life, and sleep. I may adjust it again if I find I need more. I still wish I didn’t have to sleep.
However, there’s another aspect to all of this: my sleeping habits. I am very bad about sleeping with Netflix on. Not only is this a waste of energy and bandwidth, but also very bad for my own sleep. When I leave Netflix on, I’m bad about waking up, starting a new show, and going immediately back to sleep, regardless of how much I’ve already slept. I’m hoping that a noise machine (I’ve got one already) and a fan will be enough to help me get to sleep. If it’s not, I might look into something else so that Netflix doesn’t stay on while I sleep.
Lastly, and this one is more related to me waking up than sleeping, I plan to leave my phone in my kitchen. That way, It’s easy to get to in the morning, I’ll be able to hear it in my bedroom, and it requires me to get out of bed to turn off the alarm. My thought is that if I have my phone in the kitchen, with my coffee and breakfast, I will have no excuse to not stay at least sitting up browsing the ne… well, Reddit. If I let myself stay in bed, I’ll fall back asleep. I just need to get up and stay up.
3. Exercise
One of the best tools at staving off depression is exercise and activity. But, man, I hate it. It’s painful and boring and people look at you funny. I mean, not really, no one gives a shit, but I feel like people look at me funny. Regardless, I want to live forever and not have to worry about my fitness when the mutant zombie vampire man bear pigs attack, so here’s my plan.
Yoga - Yeah, yoga. This ties in a bit with the “Absorb More” category. Yoga is a wonderful exercise that also is meant to improve your mindfulness. While practicing, you are supposed to focus on the moment. How your body feels. How your mind feels. I’m not a spiritual person, but I do believe that improved mindfulness is something we all can benefit from. Plus, yoga doesn’t require weights or much equipment, so I have no excuse for not doing it if I’m away from home or a gym.
Weights - That being said, I still want to try to use some free weights and such to work. I think it was over a year ago that the Vegan Zombie posted his workout routine video. It’s super easy, only requiring a chin up bar and a couple of dumbbells. I did it for about a month, but got lazy or busy or lazy… and stopped. My plan is to restart that. I still have the video favorited. My plan is to spend a couple of weeks focusing on yoga every day until I’m a bit more comfortable with a routine, then switch to yoga every other day with weights in between. I want to take the mindfulness of yoga and apply it to weights.
Running - Last but not least, running. Running is a bit more difficult for me to figure out when to do. I’ve got Couch to 5k, but I’m not sure I have the time to run three times a week, do yoga, and do weights. So, how do I fit this in? My current thought is to take three days that I don’t have to work (during the semester) and run on those three after class or something. I’m not sure about it, yet. Regardless, I want to get a pretty solid routine down with yoga and weights before I add another thing on top, so I’m not looking to start running until mid to late December.
Ultimately, I just need to do something. These three activities will be difficult for me to begin, but I think that once I’ve gotten used to waking up, eating breakfast, and working out, I’ll look forward to a jump start to my day every day.
4. Study More
This one is a no brainer, right? Obviously I need to study more. I try really hard to lay out time to study, but I always make excuses on why I don’t have to study… “I’ve got work in a bit.” “I’ll stay up late.” “I’ll wake up early.” We all know those are traps. I need to get better at recognizing those traps and avoiding them. No one likes to study. It’s uncomfortable and stressful. Most things are. So, what will I do to study more?
First, treating study time like work time. I never miss work. I never will. If I can’t be there, I get my shift covered. Simple as that. So, if I set aside a certain part of the day and say “This is my job as a student.” and really hold to that idea, I think I can take that same drive into my studies. If I dig a bit deeper, more into why I refuse to just miss work, I think I can figure out a way to improve my drive. Obviously, if I miss work, I’ll get fired. Simple enough. But that doesn’t quite work, because if I don’t study, I’ll fail out of college. Those are equivalent, so why does losing my job seem to weigh heavier on my mind that failing out of school? I think it’s because whether or not I finish my degree ultimately only affects me, but missing work hurts my coworkers and can impact my family. If I lose my income, I’ll either be homeless or back with my parents. I’m not sure where to pick up that more… selfless drive, for lack of a better term, in school. But, that brings me to…
Remembering why I am in school. I mentioned earlier my three long term goals. Each of those requires some education. Sure, I can technically teach myself how to program well enough to get a job or just write my own stuff, but, I’ll never have the opportunities that I have at school. So, I need to make the most of my current resources and absorb as much as I can.
Of course, that’s all well and good, but that’s all very fleeting. It’s useful for getting yourself started, but what about when you run out of steam? All my life, I’ve been told I lack discipline. It’s true. I do. So far, I’ve been able to scrape by just by doing the bare minimum. But, I’ve gotten as far as that can take me. Now, I have to learn to buckle down. I know no better way to motivate myself to continue something that I’ve started than simple rewards. I turned my budgeting and money saving into a game, and I’ve been able to save so much more just because I like the way it feels when those numbers increase. I think I can turn that into a system to rewards me for studying. I use Habitica, but, since so many things are laced together with it, it’s hard to isolate just studying like I need to. I’m still working on this idea. My current thoughts are either to create a second Habitica account just for school or create something of my own, a spreadsheet or simple game, that shows growth as I study. For every hour I study, I get 1 point or something. I like graphs and data, so it should be fun to track. I’ll pay with it a bit and see what I like most.
School is important. Regardless of which path I end up taking, a computer science degree will be useful. I can make it through this. I just need to learn some discipline and remember why I’m putting myself through this.
5. Absorb More
This one goes hand in hand with study more, but has a bit more breadth. So often, I just watch a show to have something on while I eat or sleep. I have noise on because I don’t like silence. I allow so much information to basically pass right through me. And all of it could be so useful to me as a game developer, as storyteller. So, with that, I want to learn to absorb more in all I do. To be more in the moment and less passing through the moment.
In video games - I’m pretty good at this one already. I can get really immersed in the story. Video games are intended to do that, anyways. So, I think it’s time to take it one step further. I want to focus more on why I’m playing the game. What parts I like. What parts I dislike. The idea here is to figure out what I think works and doesn’t work in a game so that when I start making my own game, I know what systems and ideas feel bad. This is especially true if I use games as a means to help others. Something like Habitica, you see, is basically volunteering yourself to do things that are uncomfortable, so if you want people to continue using such a program, you have to make it enticing and worthwhile. Learning from successful games can help me make less comfortable games more enjoyable.
At work - So often at work, I feel like I’m just going through the motions. That’s to be expected, especially some nights when I’ve been in class all day and work all night. It’s okay to be tired, but I want to work on still taking something away from that. I want to be able to connect with my customers more and with the task at hand more. I think, right now, absorbing more of what I’m doing is the thing to do. There’s a lot more to learn at work. I need to learn more about different coffees and drinks. More about different people who come through our store. And more about my coworkers instead of dismissing them. This just requires to be in the moments and paying attention instead of worrying so much about what I need to get done that night. I’ve close enough now to know what to do. It’s time to start working on something new.
In life - Lastly, there is so much of my time just wasted with vegging out. I’ve got a two hour commute 4 to 5 times a week, plus an hour commute at least 5 times a week. That’s time I could be using for something a bit more positive. Right now, I listen to music, which, don’t get me wrong, is not the problem. The problem is when I’ve listened to the same songs so many times yet can’t tell you the name of the song or the artist. My first step in absorbing more in life is to work on those commutes. I want to try some podcasts - I’ve got a few picked out - for my longer commute, then focus on new music for my shorter commute to campus. The other thing, though, is to turn off my music when I get on campus. I want to absorb as much as I can from the people around me when I get there, and music impedes that. So, simply turn off the music when I get off the bus (or maybe on the bus, I’m not sure… it’s a loud bus) and enjoy the people around me. Or at least notice something about them.
Absorbing more is just one part of this, though. After I take in that information, I need to do something with it.
6. Produce More
What good is absorbing more if I don’t do anything with it? I really don’t have too much to say here because, well, I don’t produce anything right now… But that’s gonna change!
Development! I’m in school to learn how to program and do other stuff good, too, so why not, you know, do that. I have a couple of ideas I’m tossing around in my head, but nothing solid yet. My first step, regardless, is to work on some basic projects for Android so that I can get some of the basics of Android development. After that, I’ll start working on something I think is either entertaining or useful. As of right now, I plan to spend about four hours a week on development. After school is over for the semester, I’ll up that quite a bit, but right now, I’m not even sure if that’s doable.
Art! So, I know how to play piano… I need to move that to my apartment. I’ll probably end up putting it in my living room. Yeah. Then I’ll play it. Yeah. But that’s honestly not what I’m most interested in. I want to learn how to draw. I suck at it, of course, and it’s difficult to start purely because I can picture what I want to draw in my head, then my hands turn it into a giant scribble monster. I’ve got this long term idea I want to work with, but I’m not quite ready to put it into words yet. It involves people. And stories. My first step, however, is just to work on learning the basics. I’ve got a few tutorials favorited and the basic tools I need to get started. So, I’m going to try to at least draw for ten minutes every day.
Tabletop gaming! In my group of friends, I’ve always been the game master, the server administrator, the banker, whatever. Recently, we got into Pathfinder. Unfortunately, I think that group has petered out simply due to schedules and living arrangements, but that hasn’t killed my love of being the designer and storyteller. For the past few months, I’ve been toying around with my own little system for a tabletop roleplaying game. I’d like to finish it and start trying it out with my friends. We’ve talked a bit about different things we like and don’t like, plus things we want to try, such as tying character advancement to personal improvement. First things first, though, I need to hammer out the remaining details and make sure it works. My goal is to finish the base of the system to where it is a playable game by the end of December, then use the beginning of January to try it out with my friends. To reach this goal, I’m going to write a “page” a week. This could be explaining a core mechanic or class, or maybe just writing a few spells. I’ve got big plans for it, and I’m sure you’ll see more of it here.
If you haven’t noticed, all of this leaves me with very little time for others. I’ve lost a lot of friends this semester. Most of it was for the best, but even a loner like me knows that I need a few people around.
7. Be a Better Friend
Honestly, this is the easiest fucking thing on this entire list. I just need to remember to ask questions and keep in touch. I need to remember to invite people instead of waiting on invitations. I need to branch out and make more friends, but that’s tricky right now, so I’ll focus on improving my relationship with those I already have while I wait for the opportunity to arise to make more friends. Next semester should have me in smaller classes, so I should find it easier to branch out to classmates.
Long term, I think I want a relationship again. But, that’s neither here nor there, at this time. If it happens, it happens, but I don’t expect it to happen until I have a bit more time at my disposal. I’ve become fiercely set in my ways, making it difficult just to keep friends, let alone start a relationship. Maybe in a couple of years, after I’ve finished college, I’ll start looking for a best friend and life companion.
I think that’s all of it. This ended up being much longer than I expected. But, with this, I can at least have something to look back on when I forget my way. I’m sure I’ll revise parts as I go. Maybe as early as tomorrow, but this is a start. Everything in this post is just a start. As I go along this new path, I may find that another way that is better or preferable, and I’ll take that one. My goal is to be the best person I can be. So, here we go.
