Gratitude is the name of the game. My theme for 2026 (and beyond). I can turn my focus any number of directions for this upcoming year, but this is the main thing I have chosen. I will try my best not to lose sight of it.

If you’ve been following along, you no doubt know by now that I’ve had a rocky last few years (how could you not? I mean I keep mentioning it after all). An unfortunate side effect is that coping mechanisms that used to work are no longer as effective. This is true of techniques that we’ve tried in therapy, out of therapy, internally and externally. That isn’t to say that none of them work at all, but many of them are no longer as reliable. Much of it has to do with my mental health. As I said last time, I’m not as healthy as I was a few years ago. And my confidence, self-esteem, and contentment have declined as a result. It’s best then that I try some new things to try to restore what I can. 

But I’m not trying to change the world. I’m not even trying to make a monumental change in my day-to-day life. That’s too grand a scale for me to tackle at the moment. Instead, I’m going to start small. A few months ago, my therapist challenged me with this rhetorical question: what can you do to make each day a little bit better? What indeed? Well, I can start by making micro changes in my attitude and mentality. I can focus on a 1% daily improvement. I can focus on my writing. Make daily goals for myself. All of these things have worked for me, and should continue to work for me. But the key is staying focused. When my focus wavers is when I start running into problems. This often starts out small as well, but if I’m not careful it can snowball. Best then to have an overarching goal that I can continually strive towards, something to prevent me from getting lost in the weeds. A closer medium-length target that can link my present with my future—that’s something I’ve lost sight of. 

The past few years, at the beginning of the year, I’ve done a hopes & dreams post in lieu of making New Year’s Resolutions. The reason I gave was that I don’t believe in resolutions. I still don’t. In my mind, it’s too black & white a term, setting up a scenario where the end result is pass or fail. If you pass, great. If you fail, who knows what that might do to you psychologically? Maybe you’re at a strong enough stage in your life where you can shrug it off, no problem. But what if you can’t? Better not to tempt fate. So you best believe I will not be doing such a post this year either (or any year for that matter).

But what about what I wrote last year? What about my hopes & dreams? Well… they remain unchanged. Which is both a good thing and a bad thing. It’s good because it means that despite all the speed bumps my dream has not died, and my goal still remains firmly within my focus. It’s bad because it means that in the big picture not much has changed from last year—I’m still in roughly the same exact place. In short, my hopes and dreams have not been met. Not exactly the most encouraging nugget of information. But like most things, sometimes it’s as simple as looking at it from a different perspective—easier said than done, of course. Which is probably the last thing you want to hear as a person going through mental health struggles. I get it, I’ve heard it before. When you’re in your deepest throes of depression, stupid little comments like “just be happy,” or “things could be worse,” end up being super unhelpful and insensitive. Most of the time these statements are well-intentioned, coming from family or friends, but that doesn’t negate the emotional toll that it might take on you. They just don’t get it… It isn’t a switch that can be turned on and off. You can’t just snap out of it. If it were as simple as just being happy, don’t you think we’d be happy by now? Why would we choose to be depressed?

But anyway, I digress. Sorry if I triggered you. While these types of comments aren’t what you want to hear, there is a small seed of truth buried inside of them. Shifting your perspective does work, to an extent. It’s just hard for us to do that when we feel weighed down by the twists and turns of life. The thing is though, when you’re in a healthier state of mind, changing your perspective is something that comes easier—you likely do it subconsciously. The challenge then becomes finding your way to this healthier mind state. Unfortunately for me and many others, I was not initially equipped to find this place on my own. Therapy was necessary for me to develop the tools I needed to get me to a better place psychologically. Now that I’ve been there before and I know how to get there it should be easier to get there, right? I think so… but it doesn’t mean that it’s no longer a challenge. 

That couldn’t be farther from the truth, honestly. Knowing where you need to go and having an idea of how to get there amounts to nothing more than having the instructions and knowing the formulas. You still need to solve the equation, and spoiler alert, sometimes you get the answer wrong! As I’ve said before, life is a never-ending series of trial & error, so you’ll find yourself doing plenty of rewinding & trying again. After a while, that can start to feel tedious. In those moments it’s important that you try to lock in and push forward. There will be some growing pains and rough moments, but you’ll be better off in the end. You’ll learn things about yourself that you didn’t know before. It will take mental fortitude and willpower to push through, but it’s necessary if you want to enact change in your life. The alternative to pushing through is giving up—the easier option. If you give up, things will remain the same. There won’t be a reward for you to reap, but there’s also no risk. You can safely revert to what’s comfortable without going through the growing pains. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes comfort is good. Sometimes it’s what you need. But various stages of your life may require different approaches. 

At first, the temptation to give up is relatively easy to turn down if you have a firm goal in mind. But as the disappointment weighs on you more and more, the easy way out starts to seem more appealing. I guess that’s where I’ve found myself the last few years. I wouldn’t say I’ve given up per se, but I’ve definitely let the disappointment wear on me. And that’s eroded a steadily decreasing confidence bar. Which is probably the worst thing that could’ve happened. A big change in either direction would’ve been easier to deal with. Obviously, positive movement is always the ideal. But substantial regression is so noticeable that it sets off alarm bells, which would require you to react quickly. Unfortunately, that’s not usually the way that things go… The bigger changes happen much less frequently than you would think. So wanting or expecting that is nothing more than wishful thinking. The erosion is usually so gradual that you might not even realize it right away. And even when you finally do notice it, it’s easy to overlook. I certainly did! Before I knew it, what had seemed like a trifle had turned into a problem. But I’m putting a stop to that here & now. It’s time for me to stop feeling sorry for myself and refocus. Time for me to rediscover my self-belief. 

Just because things didn’t progress the way I hoped they would doesn’t mean that all was for naught. There was still a lot of good that happened last year. Though I wasn’t able to get my life back in order, for lack of a phrase, it wasn’t like I was just sitting around twiddling my thumbs, waiting for a miracle to happen—I did what I could. I continued to plug away at my manuscript. I set aside time each week to look at and apply for job listings. These were the two things I had hoped for last year: completion of the novel, and finding employment. Unfortunately, neither of them came to fruition, but it wasn’t due to a lack of effort. Obviously, the former is fully within my control (although the speed in which I write has always been slower than I wanted or expected it to be. I’ve tried many different things to improve it but still haven’t gotten to where I wanna be), while the latter is not. Regardless, things didn’t quite work out how I wanted them to, but it is what it is. A younger version of me might’ve been more upset by this, but I’ve matured over the years, transitioned from a results-oriented approach to a more process-oriented approach, which in turn has taught me how to be patient. Yes of course I would’ve been happier if either one of these things had worked out, let alone both. But I made strides in some areas so it wasn’t a lost year.

I still have belief in myself, though it’s not as strong as in years past. Either way, it’s still way more than I had when I first started going to therapy seven and a half years ago. Back then I was feeling stuck, lost & directionless, lacking fulfillment and satisfaction in life, didn’t have much ambition or drive. I refused to take any risks because I was living in perpetual fear, which kept me trapped in a vicious cycle. That person back then had zero confidence, no self-belief, very little mental fortitude. I’m not that person anymore. Luckily, I probably couldn’t become that person again even if I wanted to. I’ve been enlightened in many ways, and I don’t think it’s possible to reverse that process. Once you open your eyes you can’t really decide to just close them again. It’s hard to be willfully ignorant. That being said, while my days have been a bit dark of late, they’re nowhere near the doom & gloom that I used to feel. I can at least find solace in that. I know there will be brighter days ahead, it’s just a matter of when not if.

I need to maintain faith in that, and trust in my ability. Just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean that it won’t happen at all. I’m still confident that I can and will get to where I want to go—at least on a more micro level. It’s gonna be a long way to the top, but at least I can start working my way back up to my feet. Remember, it’s the small things and the baby steps! So what does that look like? It means focusing on the here & now, not looking too far ahead. I still have a lot of confidence in my writing, I believe in the quality of my work. But more than anything, I’m passionate about it. I write because I enjoy doing it. That’s what I have to keep reminding myself of. If it gets to a point where it’s not fun for me anymore, then why should I keep doing it? If it starts to become a chore, then I probably need to take a step back from it and refocus—think about what I’m doing this for. The long & short of it is that I’m mostly doing it for myself. I write because I can’t not write. I have stories to tell and things I want to say. Yes, I do value my audience and my readership, but that’s never been my primary focus. If I can pause to re-center myself every so often, then I can find the determination to keep plugging away even if it takes longer than expected. At the end of the day I’ll be happy if I have a completed manuscript in my hands that’s of a quality that I feel good about. Of course getting published is still the ultimate hope, but even if that never happens I will still find fulfillment in what I do. 

As far as the job search goes, there’s only one way that can end. In the past, I didn’t have the willpower to push through. I gave up when the adversity was too tough for me to deal with. I can’t afford to do that this time around. I need to see this through til the end, because I have no other choice. I can’t spend another year of my prime without gainful employment. There are things I wanna do, places I wanna see, things I wanna buy. I just need to stay patient and keep pushing myself. Something will come together eventually. It just might end up taking more time than I thought it would. I understand and accept that now, but it took me some time to get there—to accept things for what they are, rather than idealizing. I try not to have too many regrets since there are no do overs in life. But I’m thinking that maybe I should’ve approached 2025 a little bit differently. 

I’ve always been a bit of a dreamer, even when I was young. So, naturally, more often than not I’ve had high hopes. There’s nothing wrong with dreaming about where life can take you—dreams are an effective way of maintaining your drive and ambition. But if you want these dreams to ever come to fruition you need to take action. Your dreams will never come true if you don’t pursue them. Nothing will ever get done if you’re sitting on your ass, twiddling your thumbs. Like many things in life, I learned this the hard way. I spent way too many years hoping and praying for a miracle, thinking that faith in God would be enough. But it really doesn’t work that way… God will be with you, but He won’t do the job for you. He can show you the way, but He’s not going to do the walking for you. He’ll do His part, but you also have to do yours.

Every person has been blessed with a unique set of skills and attributes. To get the most out of them you actually have to use them! It seems like such a simple concept now, but it took me a long time to understand this for whatever reason. One of the reasons why my circumstances didn’t often improve was because I wasn’t doing my part. Why did I expect things to change if I wasn’t putting in the effort? The long and short of it is I wasn’t in touch with reality. I had my dreams and I had my idealized version of the world. But there was a gulf between what life actually looked like and what I wanted it to look like. My expectations for life were not realistic and up until my mid twenties I never really had an action plan. That being said, it’s honestly a bit of a surprise that I got as far as I did flying by the seat of my pants.

I firmly believe that if I had been more pragmatic in my teens and my twenties my life would’ve turned out much differently. I probably would’ve matured quicker. But I also likely wouldn’t have learned the lessons that I learned. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without the adversity and the struggles. Everything happens for a reason, so you have to make the most of it. I know what I want now, and I have an idea on how to get there. But it feels like much of my adult life has been spent trying to find a balance, but missing the mark. Some of the changes I’ve made have turned out to be overcorrections, which has given life a bit of a topsy turvy feel to it. 

And unfortunately, writing a hopes & dreams post definitely did not help with that. Knowing what I know now, I would not have written such a post. Little did I know that my active avoidance of setting expectations inadvertently led me to quite a bit of disappointment. In verbalizing my hopes and dreams I had done exactly what I hadn’t wanted to do: I set up a pass/fail scenario. “Where’s the harm?” was the thought that ran through my mind. My hopes had seemed realistic and reasonable enough. But at some point, the hopes had morphed into expectations. Which is a slippery slope that you do not want to be on. Expectation can lead to entitlement. And when that happens, you might find yourself filled with anger, bitterness, and frustration when things don’t go your way. 

That’s certainly where I found myself for most of the year. Which is not a place I wanted to find myself in. At my best, I am a calm person, who approaches situations with logic and analytical thinking. I am usually a really great problem solver. But much of that goes away if there’s a cloud of bitterness hanging over me. And the unfortunate truth is that I let this shit go on for way too long. I let the negativity get in the way of my progress. I let my disappointment wear me down, to color my vision. There was a lot of good that happened last year, but I wasn’t able to see past my emotion. There was still so much to be grateful for even though things didn’t quite work out the way that I envisioned. So for 2026, I have one primary goal in mind. One that is not part of a pass/fail scenario. One that does not require much effort or thought. All it is is a nugget of truth that will help me re-center and re-focus. I can start today and do it again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day. All I need is one second to count my blessings. Be grateful for what I have, and not think too hard about what’s missing—for this will always be a moving target. The good things will come in time. I just need to be patient and wait.