Data and Tacos

New Year, New(sletter) - Who Dis?

I’m looking forward to a fresh, new year in ways that I haven’t dared to in quite some time. While there were some decent things about 2022, the best things I can say about it are that (1) it’s over, and (2) I’m finally far enough beyond the burnout I’d been struggling through for a while, and ready to hit the ground running. I’m not naive enough to believe that 2023 won’t be challenging (sometimes soul-crushing), in both new and old ways, but I’m feeling capable of facing them like a Waffle House employee faces flying chairs.

Some of my 2023 goals are pretty generic, typical ones:

1. More reading

2. More writing

3. More art

4. Lose the substantial amount of weight I put on in these past three years of pandemia

But others are deeper.

1. I want to have more real conversations - with people from my past whom I love but aren’t part of my daily life anymore, and with people I don’t know well, but it would enrich my life to hear from more.

2. I want to do more teaching - “teacher” is the first thing I ever remember wanting to be, and I’ve had a few more opportunities to do that recently than I had in a while. And I liked it. The way I see it, I’m only one person, and no matter how awesome I might ever be, my impact doesn’t scale unless I can teach or somehow inspire others in a way that helps them to be more awesome.

3. I want to diversify my “book of work.” While my current situation seems to be stable, I’ve got definite PTSD from the span of time where I got laid off due to market conditions three times in two years (plus got hit with a few natural disasters for good measure). If I’m honest, I haven’t fully recovered, in more ways than one, from all of that. Until recently, burnout has kept me in survival mode, and I’m ready to do what it takes to thrive, not simply survive.

4. I want to spend more of my time doing more meaningful work. I’ve gotten stuck in the past working on problems that were interesting problems, but not necessarily ones that I felt merited the time/effort/resources spent on them. One of my kids asked me recently what the purpose of life is, and my answer was, “to make life better for the people around you, and to make the world a better place than it would be without you in it,” and I had to admit to myself that I could be doing more to live up to that answer.

Back to “more writing” - that’s where this space comes in. Why “Data and Tacos”? One of the excuses I’ve made in the past for not starting a blog or newsletter is the pressure of committing to coming up with something to say on a regular basis. I’ve decided to solve that problem by agreeing with myself that if I don’t feel up for writing about data, I can always write about tacos. As for my other main excuse, “I’m sure no one really cares to hear what I have to say,” well - I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hope that someone does, but I’ve decided that that just isn’t one of my metrics for success at this time.

Happy 2023. I’m ready.