God, I hate this song.
I am pretty sure I hate most of John Lennon’s oeuvre, especially if it’s not with the Beatles (and I’m not that much of a Beatles fan either).
I find the sentiment artificial and cloying, and I also tend to feel a stinging indictment that I’ve mostly frittered away another year, that I have continued to squander my inheritance that I’ve been given, and that the next year will probably be more of the same.
I did have some accomplishments this year:
- I got to the rank of 3rd degree black belt in martial arts (but I’ve been very intermittent in attendance since last January).
- I did manage to get three apps into the Apple App Store (Boxing Drill Companion, Dr. Franklin’s Art of Virtue Tracker, and Nico’s Kitty Translator).
- I had two poems appear in a university publication (the Green Hills Literary Lantern).
- I have four poems submitted to a major, actual print, magazine, and they have not been rejected in seven months.
I mean, I guess that’s a couple of things to hang one’s hat on, conversation starters and whatnot, but some other numbers are less encouraging.
- I “applied” for 1,035 jobs this year, of which I received…
- 26 responses requesting more information, assessments, or scheduling screener interviews, wherein…
- I talked to actual people at 9 companies, mostly screeners, but…
- 2 times I went deep into the interview process and got…
- 1 job offer in February, contingent on contract award in April. Given how the times have a-changed, there’s no telling if that contract was awarded. I liked my chances elsewhere, though, although this seems to have been an overly optimistic view of the market and/or my salability.
I have been blessed to have two part-time, sometimes, contracts to provide some income, although it’s frankly only enough to cover COBRA health benefits now. One of the contracts, though, requires me to be available a lot of the time but I only get to bill when I’m responding to needs. Which has left me feeling chained to my desk for many days over the year. And it has night meetings, which means I’m “on” until 8:30 or so at night, which leaves me little time for reading. I’m lucky to have it; it’s one of the few job offers I’ve had in the late over-the-transom period of applying on the Internet.
So, what am I going to do differently in 2026 to improve my lot? Probably not a lot, gentle reader.
I haven’t had “New Years Resolutions,” but I have tried to pin some themes on the years. Things to focus on improving, so to speak. The theme for 2024, for example, was “Focus.” I realized I was a little busy-minded, especially when reading at night, where I was constantly checking the Internet for this or that on my phone when I was supposed to be reading. So I worked hard to resist that urge to respond to a text until the end of a chapter or to not look up something when it occurred to me. I did okay at that one.
This year, the goal was “Industry.” Given my employment situation, I wanted to make sure that I spent the time at my computer and other daytime hours in a productive fashion. Well, kinda, especially early in the year. But my Industry yielded few sales of apps, which discouraged me, so, yeah, the latter part of this year has been less industrious.
Next year, though: “Get the hell away from the desk.” It’s not one word and not very snappy, but it will probably do a lot for me. One of the things that I’ve been proud of going into my fifties has been how sort-of athletic I am and how healthy I am, and the latter part of 2025 has seen me relinquish that day by day. Plus, I really could use the interaction with humans that I get from martial arts classes or business networking events or tech meetups.
I should probably start today. I should probably start right now. Maybe after a nap. Which is away from the desk, after all.
