- My stomach settled down a bit. Still feels awful, not as awful.
- Playing with an interesting writing idea.
- Being able to ping other people to help when I feel unwell.
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- I recognize my body seems to have relatively strong and harder to override feedback against behaviors that will harm my health — maybe I’ve gotten less “done” over the years, but I’m healthier than I would otherwise be.
- My coworking group.
- Being patient enough this week with finding a way to base growing my work capacity on adequate recovery, instead of forcing quotas to get to reliable progress immediately (e.g. just slamming down three goals for +120 min/day each
)
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- i’m grateful work didn’t stress or annoy me to bits today.
- self-gratitutde-quota: i’m grateful i’ll be in bed considerably earlier than yesterday. (probably even before 1 a.m.; yay!)
- i’m grateful for today’s therapy session. it reminded me of a few friends which i haven’t seen in a while and will see again on saturday, which i very much look forward to. talking about one friend in particular kind of transferred his always-positive-and-happy-energy a bit over to me, in that moment, which was very nice. <3
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- Despite interpersonal stuff, should still be meeting with a group this evening to try some new hard content on FFXIV.
- Music while I work. I kept forgetting to charge my earbuds, recently; glad I remembered now.
- “Lazy” day, in that it’s a normal work day but I stayed wrapped up in my PJs and dressing gown because I don’t feel well.
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- Average mood has improved so much over the past three months without me noticing it. I much more readily attribute “I’m tired today” than I do “I’m depressed today” for low energy states.
- Unlike a lot of my relatives, I somehow never became (pre)diabetic even when I put on a lot of weight in my late 20’s.
- My goals are all green except for the two I just ratcheted.
- Fridays and weekends have become meaningful again for me, instead of being arbitrary day labels.
- Tabletop session tomorrow.
- I see how my life experiences as a whole, even including the bad or difficult ones, have contributed to me being very future oriented, and very very not past oriented.
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- self-gratitude-quota: i’m grateful to myself for having exchanged all my bedding today. i did it a few hours ago, so it’s already done now. i can simply fall into bed and i don’t have to deal with any covers anymore; ideal!
- i’m grateful for the film kiki’s delivery service. rewatched it just now, because i needed a comfort film, and it did have the desired effect (making me non-anxious). most of the dialogue was lost on me this time, because i watched it in japanese with japanese subtitles, but i did understand a few words and sentences here and there, which makes me very happy!
- i’m grateful that beeminder is doing its job for me, for now! i’ve started to manually ratchet my steps goal to 0 safe days each morning*, so today i spent quite a few minutes shuffling up and down the flat in order to still meet my goal! yay!
*technicalities:
- since it’s a garmin autodata goal, it resets every midnight, and so far i always ratcheted it shortly after midnight, so not technically in the morning XP
- i’ve only started the manual ratcheting a few days ago, so it’s not even been a full week yet, so i’m kind of hesitant actually to say things like “each morning,” especially because …
- i just ratcheted it to 1 instead of 0 safety days for tomorrow XP this is because i’ll have my birthday party tomorrow, and as established, birthdays are lazy days for me (and yes, birthday party days count, too XP) i’ll likely get to 5 000 steps anyway, because i still need to do a bunch of cleaning, and then we’ll go to dinner at night (although to a place really close to where i live), but the point is, i don’t want to come-what-may force myself to do 5 000 steps / wouldn’t want to punish myself for not making it, in case i don’t.
if you’ve read this far, you get a free observation! (this isn’t a technicality anymore, but it also doesn’t fit the gratitudes-vibe exactly, so it seems fitting to keep it hidden under the tag as well XD) anyway, free observation: i like the flexibility of manually ratcheting things! i guess this only works if i’m honest enough with myself and absolutely do it regularly … but so far, it’s been working!
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- I’m spending a few days with family in a different city and am having a lovely time.
- I caught a train instead of a plane to minimise emissions and the train trip was comfortable and relaxing.
- My family liked the presents I brought for them, and the children were very enthusiastic about craft kits.
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- SGQ: Even though I was tired, I took my dog to the park and he had a nice time.
- I had today off to prep for my snowboard trip (and all of next week to go on it).
- The sellers of the house we’re trying to buy accepted our counter offer.
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- Getting to do things in London for a couple of weeks is great - even though I like my “country mouse” life, I do like being a “town mouse” sometimes, too!
- My sister-in-law, for welcoming us to her London flat.
- A new goal I started recently is still holding well.
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- Wales v Ireland today. It should be interesting to see how the side has changed with Gatland back in charge.
- My group on FFXIV cleared what the community calls EX1 last night without too much trouble. Which makes sense, it’s not as hard as EX4 (which we previously struggled with but eventually cleared)… but it was nice.
- Dinner with my parents later. Lisa’s making it, so we get to give Dad a break. Always nice.
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- SGQ: I made my bed, took even though I really didn’t want to. But when I was in my bed, I was super grateful!
- Someone being nice to me
- Mood is slightly better today.
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- self-gratitude-quota: i’m grateful i did a more thorough than usual cleaning today.
- i’m grateful that everyone came to my party.
- i’m grateful that i can sleep in tomorrow, more or less.
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- The view from this window with the trees - bare in winter, but sort-of architectural and sculptural and beautiful
- Went to Eltham Palace yesterday, which is an amazing 1930s time capsule, with gorgeous wood veneer everywhere, and period pieces galore
- Google Maps makes all these multi-modal journeys so easy, with buses and trains and walking all beautifully connected up, in a way that is so sci-fi it’s hard to hold onto quite how amazing it actually is
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- Alternating productivity with reading.
- Lisa’s briefly gone out, so I have the house to myself. I have nothing in mind to do with my alone time, it’s just nice now and again.
- The first time I woke up this morning, I felt awful, but I went back to sleep for a bit and felt better.
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- @shanaqui: I received perfumes from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab; today I’ve tried one, it’s smells sooo good. Thanks again for the recommendation.
- Being able to help out someone yesterday. It was even fun since I could train my data science muscles. I’ve got juicy super secret info in return
. - I worked on something meaningful today, even though it’s Sunday
- I’m in an OK mood for the first time since a week! And don’t feel as fatigued as other days.
- I ate tons of sushi with my family today
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- self-gratitude-quota: i’m grateful that i’ve been consistently writing these gratitudes for almost a full month now! my first post here was january 11th (2023), and i haven’t since missed a single day!
:D - i’m grateful that today was mostly chill and calm.
- i’m grateful that i’ll probably visit a university course together with my friend next semester. this is a bit of an ambivalent topic, but the gratitude-part of it is that i haven’t seen her too regularly recently, so it’ll be nice to see each other every week again! (especially since just last week in therapy i talked about how i don’t really feel as close to her anymore as i used to, precisely because we haven’t really seen each a lot recently, and we also barely got any one-on-one-time, it was usually group meetings with other friends.)
ambivalence and meta thoughts
the ambivalent thoughts regarding this topic mostly concern the university side of things, but here we go regardless:
- i’ll have another course right before the one with my friend starts, and since it’ll be at a different location i’ll probably always arrive late to the course we’ll do together.
- i’ll need to shuffle around my work hours a bit, so that i don’t always arrive late/stressed to work after the course, and so that i still get to do the same amount of total hours that i need.
- i don’t need this course for anything, and i won’t take the exam. maybe it’ll be usefull for my master thesis topic? (in which case this point wouldn’t apply.) but so far there’s only the course title online, no description or literature list yet, so i don’t actually know exactly what it’ll be about.
it might seem counter-intuitive to write down a “i’m grateful for this, but” thought. however, it’s been a great and useful experience, so i can only recommend it! thinking about it in more detail (which this post forced me to do, because while my words are often spur-of-the-moment i actually like them to be fully accurate, as far as verifyable-facts go), i realised that i actually really look forward to attending this course with my friend. and that the objections i had/have, are No Big Deals after all! yes, i currently start my monday work at 12, and i wouldn’t be able to do that anymore, since the course ends at 12:15. but i can just start my monday work hours at 14, make them one hour longer on that day, one hour longer on wednesday, and all is fine again! that even gives me time each monday to spend with my friend after the course, grab lunch or go to the library, or whatever! :)
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- Last week I gave myself a week off from studying, so I could come back to it fresh. I still have seven weeks to do my assignments, so I’m not worried, and I think the time to let information settle was a good thing. Thank you, self!
- I also listened to myself and mostly rested last night, and thus feel fairly refreshed this morning.
- I am almost off my anxiety medication! I am… massively anxious pretty often, but that always spikes up during getting-off-medication times anyway. So I’m not reversing course yet.
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- Went to see C’s dad, and he is looking very well
- New boots are wearing in really well, and still looking great
- A quiet night in tonight, which makes a lovely change
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- SGQ: I’ve done something I’ve been afraid of doing and the consequences are great.
- Life feels awesome today.
- I’ve made impactful improvements for my client and my side projects and it felt pretty easy.
- Mood is still improving.
- A friend being funny and also finally free.
- I actually feel gratefulness instead of thinking it, today
- Leftover sushi
- Beeminder goal that made me work earlier
- I walked a bit more this morning
- Everything is so awesome !!!
- Watching a bit of a dumb movie with mom
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- self-gratitude-quota: i’m grateful that yesterday-self decided to go watch avatar 2 with friends today! it’s a long movie. i wasn’t particularly hyped about going to see it. (i wouldn’t have gone to see it at all were it not for my friends inviting me.) the main reasons i had considered not joining them were a) the sheer length of the film and b) the underwater theme. i’ve been afraid of whales / scary underwater creatures ever since i was a child, and watching the trailer did not really inspire me with confidence that this would be a non-scary movie XP (it wasn’t. but i just closed my eyes during the really bad (for me) scene, and all other water-adjacent scenes were more or less fully bearable!)
- i’m grateful for avatar 2. it was a great movie! i really enjoyed it immensely! those 3+ hours did not feel like long, tedious 3+ hours! it was super super pretty and amazingly beautiful. also, 3d is wild! (don’t remember when i last saw a movie in 3d XD)
- i’m grateful that i feel motivated to floss again tonight. now, maybe i won’t. maybe i’ll forget. maybe the feeling will pass when i’ll have finished brushing my teeth. but i feel decently content with myself tonight, enough to be in a mindset of “flossing only takes like one minute or so and it’s been days since my last floss and i want to keep the beeline green, and yes, i’m tired, but this is such a low effort task that it feels ridiculous to continue to find excuses for it, now that i’m mentally feeling like i can handle it again, and i want to accumulate more buffer on my goal again”. that’s enough for me, for now! it really seems like i’m pulling myself up again out of a mentally-different-slump, which is always nice (no matter how long it lasts)!
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