No games, no complaining, no memories
It's been awhile since I updated here. I had several posts in my head that I wanted to write up but never got around to it. I went to some concerts quite awhile ago and until I wrote about it, I was delaying the other things I was going to write about, namely in regards to my year without. I owe this blog the documentation of several months, though I can't quite remember what I went without for certain months.
August: I'm not sure what I went without. I have notes about what I should give up for each month, but I didn't stick to the outline. For August, I put that I would give up eating out and would have to cook all meals. However, I'm pretty sure I delayed that to November. I'm at a loss as to what I went without in August.
September: Again, I'm not sure what I went without. My notes indicate to give up buying things but a few months earlier I had done exactly that. Except, back then my goal was not to buy new things so my September goal would be the next level, which is not to buy things at all, except for necessities such as human food, pet food, and toiletries. I probably did that and did a good job, however to make up for the times when I wasn't buying things, I probably bought even more during the other months.
October: I gave up online gaming. I felt like at first I was playing online games because they were free and it was a way to socialize and have fun with my friends who live far away but soon it sucked up my time and I was being less productive. I wanted my time back! I wanted to achieve something! Thus, I gave up the games. I did so well that I kept it going for awhile. I might've started playing a game now and then in November but in December it started to spiral back to where it was. Now in 2015, I want to curb it back down and only play 1 game if I play at all. I tend to play about 3 at a time.
November: I'm pretty sure this was the month that I said I would cook all meals, but I failed terribly. I gave up halfway through the month, hardly cooking any meals at all. It was pretty bad. There's certain things about my mental state and the state of my kitchen that demotivates me to cook. Being bored with what I eat, what I cook, my defaults. It's hard to overcome the slump. However, I cooked several dishes for Thanksgiving and lived off of that for several days. It was a little strange to get into the groove of cooking since I hadn't cooked that much at once in quite awhile.
December: I gave up negative thinking. I called it "positive December". I tried not to complain. I turned my bitching about others into praise. A backhanded complement perhaps but a complement nonetheless. A few times I began to get mad because of traffic or someone doing something stupid, but I quickly diffused and tried to put a positive spin on it. I got really good at quickly spinning my negative thoughts about someone into a positive but I can't think of a good example now. I'm just trying to be not as negative overall and just let things go with a sigh.
Overall, it was an interesting year to give up something each month but I think I set some of my goals a little low because I didn't see a big change to me but that could just be me expecting way too much. Big changes may not stick. I can only control my thoughts and actions and strive to be better each day.
