The mimetic desire to write a reflection piece has taken over after seeing many others’ posts (shoutout Luke Burgis and Rene Girard).
2022 has been the most challenging year of my life. I hit a breaking point. My intellect had enough. I was settling for a life I did not want to live—chasing what I thought was “fun” on the weekends and having uninteresting calls and surface-level conversations with people that seriously did not care about me. All boiled over after I realized I was culminating in habits that were detrimental to my physical and mental health.
Prioritization and action: two nouns that I underestimated the significance of not only on a standalone basis but as a pairing.
But even before you can prioritize or act, you need to think. Intellectually, I wasn’t doing much of that. 2022 was the year I started thinking. Thinking about my health, thinking about what type of person I wanted to become, thinking about my goals (both professionally and relationally). Thinking more about how I was treating other people. Thinking more about how I was thinking about things. I was changing my thought processes.
To prioritize in itself is to act. Action without prioritization can drive value. In many cases “imperfect action is better than perfect stillness”. - Nicole
But acting on a prioritized list is where true meaning is created, not merely acting.
I thought the best decision for me was to put down the alcohol. So I prioritized this in my life, acted on it, and now I am 9 months without a drink and working to build a community of like-minded individuals who want to drink less.
There are plenty of people to thank, and plenty of articles, blogs, and resources to cite, but the main takeaway from 2022 was that I feel like I completely changed the direction of my life. Off the public transportation system and walking on my own two feet, sobriety catalytically improved my thoughts, priorities, and actions.
If you have made it this far through and are still reading, THANK YOU. Your support, your eyes on this post, your likes or comments, and your messages push me to keep going. I never thought I would be publishing writing, posting vlogs, or tweeting to an audience of any material size, but here we are. I am learning that effort in any magnitude, is not embarrassing (thank you again Nicole).
Thank you so much. I am forever grateful to so many of you.
Cheers,
Cam
P.S. please say hi on Twitter!