2022, Will I Learn From You?
Six lessons 2022 wants to teach me if only I’ll listen
Six lessons 2022 wants to teach me if only I’ll listen
“I don’t feel like writing today.”
Too often in 2022, those have been the words in my head, and too often I’ve listened to them. It’s been a really down year for me in the writing department. And looking back at my post “The 10 Valuable Things 2021 Taught and Gave Me,” well, that was not my intention for 2022.
So, here I am. Do I listen to those words — again — and let another potential blog post go by the wayside? No.
No, this time, I am going to ignore those words and write. Why? Well, because unlike many other times when I’ve sat down to write in 2022, this time I’ve made a deadline: Midnight, December 31st, 2022. And I’m going to meet it. After all, who the heck wants to read a retrospective on 2022 that’s published in 2023?
So right off the bat, we get to the first lesson I learned in 2022:
Lesson #1: I Need Deadlines If I’m Going to Publish Consistently
My most successful year of blogging was 2018. What was my secret? Weekly deadlines, no exceptions.
Without a deadline, I’ll either never start or I’ll start with a head of steam, possibly even pound out a few thousand words, and then fail to follow through with the editing, re-writing, and publishing of the piece.
Looking through my Medium “Drafts” folder for posts I started in 2022, I count 10 articles that are at least 5 minutes long, which means if I just took some time I could probably polish them into something worth publishing (assuming they are still timely, of course).
And there are countless other snippets of ideas that I could have turned into a post.
But I didn’t.
So yes, to reiterate: Deadlines, Bryan, give yourself deadlines. (Even if I don’t write anything else of substance in this post, I’m going to publish this just so I can stare that advice in the face and, maybe, more importantly, check back throughout 2023 to see how well I’m doing.)
Lesson #2: Keep Following, Trusting, and Following Through On Synchronicities
I have long been fascinated by Carl Jung’s ideas about synchronicity, commenting in this 2019 blog post that I believe synchronicities suggest “our inner world is much more connected to our outer world than our modern worldview would have us believe. The wall between subjective and objective exists, but it may also have windows or even doorways. And sometimes things will pass between those windows or doorways.”
I’ll share an impactful one I had in 2018. I was riding my bike, thinking about my friend Rob and a funny conversation where he had used the word “peccadillo” and suddenly my mind flashed to an obscure baseball player from the 1980s who played for the Oakland Athletics named Rob Piciollo. About 30 seconds later, I went around a corner and an old man was walking toward me, wearing an Oakland Athletics jacket! Now, I’ve lived in Japan for 18 years and I think this was the only time I’ve seen somehow in Athletics gear (and I always notice MLB or NFL gear).
Why did that happen then? Had some part of my consciousness perhaps travelled a few minutes into the future and saw the unusual Oakland Athletics jacket and thus had caused me to make that jump from Rob and peccadillo to Rob Piccolo of the Oakland A’s? Perhaps. All I know is I was so inspired by that one that it gave me the idea to write this fun novelette exploring synchronicity.
The Synchronicity Factory
Fiction: A comic take on the extra-dimensional forces that are behind the mysterious force of synchronicity and why we…medium.com
All that said, I realized in 2022 that over the past few years synchronicities seem to have become so commonplace that sometimes I’m taking them for granted.
But today I was reminded that I often really get rolling with my life when I’m paying attention to synchronicities, discerning their meanings, and following through on their guidance.
You see, after writing about 3/4 of the first draft of this post I had a synchronicity that told me I had to finish it. I’d gone out on my bicycle to run some errands and get some exercise and I put on a short podcast from Dr. Naomi Wolf’s Substack. And what do you know — she started by talking about how she learned from her father, a poet, that “once you write something it no longer belongs to you, it belongs to the universe.” She went on to detail why it’s so important for writers to live the life of a writer — asking yourself if “every day of your working life, (are you) doing your utmost to tell the truth as you know it; to make the manifestation of it in prose?”
This was like a friendly kick in the pants, a reminder to work on this post all the way until I pressed the Publish button. Because I know that people appreciate when I share myself. I get that feedback all the time. And I know that my perfectionism combined with some laziness often stops me from giving my work to the world. There are no winners in that outcome. My work stays inside of me, I feel guilty about it and potential readers are deprived of my efforts.
So thank you, Universe, for this synchronicity. And thank you, Dr. Wolf, for taking the time to share your writing (and turn it into a podcast!) because I needed to hear it and then, most importantly, act on it, showing that I believe the message.
Lesson #3: Nihilism Is Killing My Productivity
Now, I’ve heard it said that the number one reason people don’t set New Year’s Resolutions is that they’ve made them in the past and then failed to fulfill them, making them feel like a failure. After 2022, I can relate.
You see, at the start of 2022, I made a list of goals for myself: 1) Every month, I will set goals for myself and then do them; 2) I will learn more about how to make money from writing; 3) I will keep writing; 4) I will finish my short story collection; 5) I will finish my non-fiction collection.
Did I accomplish any of these? Nope!
I don’t want to beat myself up. My intent with these what-this-year-taught-me posts is to hold myself to account publicly. My hope is that this will motivate me to do better next year. However, I’ll be 50 on January 4th, and as I look back at the past few years, I recognize that I’m struggling with nihilism, which then turns me hedonistic and my hedonism makes me lazy. Too often, I hear in my head the words “Fuck it” before doing something that I know isn’t good for me, something that robs me of my zest for life, which then kills my creative spirit and my productivity.
Let me give the example for 2022. I really do not want to share this, but here on my third re-write, I’m hearing another voice in my head, one that probably has angel wings, gently saying, “Go on.” And this one is related to the next lesson.
Lesson #4: Be Humble And Be Easier On Yourself
Readers of this blog might remember I quit drinking alcohol in November 2020.
Flash forward to July 2022 and me cycling home on a hot and humid evening, stopping at a convenience store for a cold drink. I had been eyeing my favorite Japanese alcoholic beverage (chu-hais) for a few weeks, and I could hear their siren call. Finally, I literally gave voice to those words, “Fuck it,” and bought one. 10 minutes later as I finished it, I stopped at a second store to buy “just one more.”
The funny thing is I didn’t even finish that second one. I wasn’t feeling very well so I dumped it out. When I got home, I was feeling good about myself, thinking I’d passed some sort of test, proving that my body no longer enjoys booze.
Well, if that was a test, I did not pass it. Here we are at the end of the year and I’ve been drinking chu-hais every day since. I suppose the good news is I don’t think I’ve been drunk once. I usually just drink enough to get a little buzzed. But still — I don’t think I’d have fallen back into this daily habit if I wasn’t feeling nihilistic because those words “Fuck it” don’t resonate unless I’m feeling nihilistic. In fact, maybe I wouldn’t even think those words in the first place.
In the end, I got cocky on that summer night. I thought I could just have one and not turn it into a daily habit. But that’s not the way my mind works. I’ve got a history of issues with addiction.
You might wonder if I am this self-aware, why haven’t I stopped? I don’t know. But it’s connected to my hedonistic desire to escape my nihilism. This part of me feels like maybe I don’t care if I live a long life. In the 1980s, the Grateful Dead sang, “I may be going to Hell in a bucket, babe, but at least I’m enjoying the ride.”
But am I enjoying it? I know at times this fall I have written in my journal that I am. I also know that in spring 2021, when I was sober, life felt heavy and hard. So I’m afraid to stop because I don’t want life to feel that way again.
Anyway, I know I’m supposed to learn humility from this experience. And I also know that I’m not supposed to beat myself up for it. Why? Because that’s just another excuse I’ll use to not give a fuck.
Last, I also know many others are going through similar challenges right now. This is not an easy period for us humans. I’ll blog about some of the things that are concerning me in future posts. I just want to end this segment by saying if you are also struggling with these issues, feel free to reach out to me. I’m going to continue writing honestly about my situation. Maybe we can help each other. And maybe, just maybe, by doing that, I’ll gain the courage to quit again.
We interrupt this personal 2022 retrospective to bring you my answer to what the meaning of life is:
The meaning of life is simple and arrives in alliteration: “Life is for learning, loving, and living.”
PS. Feel free to put those in whatever order you like!
A proper year-ender should leave a reader on a high note, correct? So let me share some of the things I did right in 2022.
Lesson #5: My Students Like Me And I Like What I’m Teaching
2022 was the year I became a successful, full-time freelance teacher. The job takes a lot of effort but, for the most part, I’m really enjoying the experience and, from the feedback I’ve received, so far I’m doing a really good job.
My students have told me they are amazed that I take the time to write personal essays for many of our classes and that they always find my classes amusing, educational, and enjoyable. Hearing these things over the past few weeks has really cheered me up (and probably given me the motivation to write and share this post).
I consider myself lucky: I get to teach all ages — -my youngest student is 7 and my oldest is almost 80 — and all levels. Each student has different interests. Some of my classes are small — -3 or 4 students as well as some one-on-one students — some mid-sized — around 20 students — and some large, over 40 students. Some are online, some are in person, some require I stand up the whole time, and others that I sit down. Some require I wear a gorilla suit, others nothing but my birthday suit.
Okay, okay, neither of those last two is true. So far there have been no suits for my jobs and well, that’s another reason I like my gigs. Living in Japan, it’s hard to be a middle-aged man and work professionally without being forced to wear a suit. (Now, there is one exception to this, but it’s only for a gig that I do a few days every year, thank goodness.)
And last, I love how my schedule is different every day. Some days I work in the mornings, others in the afternoon, and others at night. I went through some difficult mental health issues during my final few years of full-time teaching and because those have mostly disappeared I believe some of that was due to a strong resistance against doing the same thing, day in and day out.
So, in sum, a positive thing I’ve learned in 2022 is I like being a freelance teacher, I’m grateful for my work, I’m happy my students appreciate me and I want to continue to get better at it.
Lesson #6: Being A Valued Member of Communities Matters to Me
As an ex-pat living in an area where almost nobody speaks my native language, I’ve long relied on social media for most of my deeper social interactions. You see, I’m a person who can spend hours conversing about things as diverse as why the Kennedy Assassination was a coup that America has never recovered from to diving into one’s psychological shadows by viewing movies. But to find people interested in discussing such niche topics, I have to rely on the Internet.
And one place I’ve found such people is in an online community on the Mighty Networks site called Emergent Commons. In spring 2021, it grew out of the former YouTube Channel, Rebel Wisdom. The main appeal of this community for me is meeting on Zoom calls with a diverse group of like-minded/like-hearted people in various groups focused on topics of one’s choice.
I can’t describe how much I’ve gotten out of being a part of this community. I have made many deep connections, and these connections are a balm to my nihilism. In addition, being in this community has increased my confidence because I’ve been told by a wide variety of members how much they value my contributions. I should mention that by contributions I’m not just talking about what I say on Zoom calls. No, I’m also a reasonably active writer on the site.
Anyway, I know I put a lot of earnest effort into being a valued member of the community, so it’s good to hear from members that they appreciate my contributions.
Now, there is one more community I’ve taken part in, even hosting Zoom meetings, but due to scheduling conflicts, I’ve had to take a step back from it. It’s another private group on the Mighty Networks and is based around the work of the writer Charles Eisenstein, who has been helping me make sense of our world and care more about it since I discovered him 15 years ago. That group is called NAAS (New and Ancient Story). I’ve also made some great connections there, including to a few people here in Japan, and I hope I can be more regular in 2023 because I miss them.
Anyway, I believe being in a community is essential to mental health yet our modern, individualized way of life can make finding a community hard. Online communities are one of the positives of the Internet and if you are feeling isolated, perhaps see if you can find one to join and see if it helps you as it has helped me. On that note, if you are interested in either of these communities I’ve shared, you can click on the links and learn how to sign up.
Okay, I was going to go into some stuff about astrology, which I continue to love exploring, but think I’ll save it for a future post. I’ll just say that, if the transits of the planets are any indication, and my experience studying this ancient wisdom technique tells me they are, 2023 looks to be a new chapter in the 2020s story, perhaps more topsy-turvy than 2022. It seems as though 2020–2022 was chapter 1 and 2023–2025 is the intense chapter 2 and then 2026 is like the start of something new. Again, more on that in a future post!
And last, you may wonder why this year I went with just six lessons. There are two reasons. First, it’s because I wanted to make this edition shorter than last year’s. Second, I also enjoy playing with numerology, and 2022 was a 6-year (2+2+2). Does that mean 2023 will have 7 lessons? Come back next year and find out!
For now, thanks for reading and please let me know in the comments what you learned from 2022, even if, like me, some of those lessons were ones you may not want to learn or have been learning before. Again, life is for living, loving, and, absolutely, learning!
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