# Hello Meaningful Relationships, Goodbye Drifting One of things I told myself I want to do better at in 2024 (and beyond?) is curate better relationships - it's something that's been bugging me for several years now - how we hold on to relationships that, as beautiful as it may be when it happened, have [[Expired Relationships|expired]]. In the pursuit of that, I've decided to do 2 things: ## 1. ***Declutter - Leave chat groups that have gone stale*** Many chat groups eventually devolve into groups meant to exchange seasonal greetings or gossip about people from the past. Over the years, I've found this extremely performative and/or toxic. We all end up 'feeling' like we're still connected but really all we're doing is validating that everyone is still alive while the gap between our worlds expand (*never even finding out how everyone is actually doing*). Aside from that, I also feel like there's a security risk - if everyone is dormant, any compromised account that is in the group now has free access to the entire chat group's history where potentially sensitive information could be obtained (this is information that could be used to be better design social engineering campaigns against specific individuals) Sure. Such risks exist even in active chats, but to me, the productive outputs of having an active chat outweigh the risks of a dormant one. So... this year, I hope to slowly leave the dormant chats I'm in so that the friendships that are meant to remain and grow can do so on a more intentional basis. It's also one less 'digital thing' that takes up space in the back of my mind. **If you're reading this because I left a chat group we were in... Feel free to say hi to me directly!** ## 2. ***Build more [[Productive Relationships|productive friendships]]*** I'm at the phase of Life where I want to achieve stuff. And I think I'm not alone. I'm certain that there are many others trying to juggle the demands of Life while trying to do well for themselves across multiple verticals. I also think powerful relationships come through mutually supportive endeavours (shared journeys, struggles, alternating support, etc) As such, not only do I not want to go about achieving my goals alone (if I can help it), I'm also hoping that if anyone has a common/similar goal set as mine, that we could jointly hold each other accountable as well as provide the necessary support and motivation to keep us making progress. If you have similar goals in the following areas(click to expand) and/or looking for a buddy, feel free to ping me >[!note]- General Software Development/IT Consultations > This is just... well... work. I'm constantly open to helping people solve problems around "Tech" - from product scoping and development to setting up of their technical teams and processes. This year, I'm hoping to be able to help more companies navigate the adoption of new technologies and services so that they can modernise their operations > >[!note]- "Memento Mori" App >Inspired by [waitbutwhy's The Tail End](https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html), I've always wanted an app that could act as a realtime reminder of how many 'moments' I have left just to keep time with various people and experiences in perspective. I hope that I can build this app this year as some sort of opensource/collaborative effort. >[!note]- Read more books > Not sure how buddy-ing up will help in this one but I'm hoping to read more books more intentionally this year. And by intentionally I mean that I want to more properly study a book and distill how it can be applied to an active part of my Life. > > In this area, I recently discovered [The Saturday Book Club](https://www.instagram.com/thesaturdaybookclub/) - a group that organises a book club meetup every 3rd Saturday of the month. Aside from a chance to meet new people, I like that their format doesn't force everyone to read a specific book - instead opting to group people into small groups for everyone to share whatever book they want to share. Great way to discover new books too. > >[!note]- Publish a podcast series >I'm currently laying the groundwork for a series targeted at folks who run the 'tech stuff' of the household. If you're one of these folks, I would love to get in touch! > >[!note]- Share Gameplay of Minecraft World >I play Minecraft with some friends and have a server running for it. I think it's kinda interesting to see how a 'virtual world' changes from time to time. This year I hope we can embark on some Epic Minecraft projects and share that with a wider audience. > >If you're looking to get into Minecraft or looking for a server to play on, feel free to reach out. (*Disclaimer: I may not open up the server to just about anyone because of security but it's safe to say we'd be pretty ok if you've met one of the server mods before*) > >[!note]- Rebuild my health >Sometime in 2023, I started experiencing regular panic attacks and almost overnight it because impossible for me to exercise. From doing regular 3-5km jogs, it became a struggle to just do a few hundred metres without triggering something. Since then I've gone for therapy, gotten that under control and only in recent times have I been able to go on proper walks. > >It's my intention now to slowly go for regular walks (progressively increasing in distance) before gradually progressing in speed. If you're looking for a walking buddy, feel free to ping me. > >[!note]- Donate Blood more regularly >I've set out to do this is 2024 so if you've been thinking of doing this but keep hesitating, feel free to join me. Sometimes company is a great way to kickstart the process > >[!note]- Contribute skills to a non-profit organisation/project >I want to contribute in some way to a community project and I'm spending Q1 2024 looking to identify which project/organisation that might be. > *Will update this page as the year progresses* --- To have a conversation with me about this note, email me at [email protected] To understand why I chose to use email over comments, [[Why I'm using email instead of comments|read this]]. Date Created/Updated: [[ 2024-01-21 |21st January 2024 ]] @ 10.54am