Thoughts and February
(Originally published February 28, 2023)
So this time of year is tough. February is arguably the worst month for seasonal depression and it has not been easy this year just like most. It's essential to try to continue to do what I can when I can despite my pivot from being hyped and ready to go for every aspect of my life to needing o kick myself out of bed in the morning and struggling to make it through the day. It's a real challenge. I haven't felt up to writing, consulting, building, learning, or growing. I just want to sleep. If you aren't familiar with depression, this is very common.
The overall economy has not been pretty. I've spoken at length about my struggles financially to start 2023. It has really hindered my progress and work so far this year and I am hoping that as the year continues, things loosen up and start to flow again. I am working on some things that could help and doing what I can with the energy I have to make progress. I also understand that there are not an endless amount of things that I can do in order to fix this and am working on accepting that things aren't the same as they were at the midpoint of 2022.
I am really happy though that this post looks like a third for February. There haven't been many months since starting the blog that I've had more than two blog posts in a month. I see this as a win, no matter how small.
My goal going into March is to be more in tune with myself. I have some time away from the snow and darkness next week and I am excited to get out of my normal day-to-day. I think that this will provide me with some energy and help me to move into spring with a better outlook and energy than I have now.
As far as DepressiveHacks, the next goal is to figure out the next steps for onboarding artists and doing more Publisher drops. I am writing this on the day Awkward Astronauts celebrated its anniversary with a birthday party. I think that despite slow progress, the promise of this project is extremely impressive. I am also working on best practices with Yondar in order to represent their company and product as best I can. Both of these aspects of DepressiveHacks are relatively new, especially compared to the blog, but I feel that both carry a lot of upsides to bring DepressiveHacks into this year and beyond.
The goal of DepressiveHacks started as an education platform. I still love education. I think that the avenues available for adults to learn, especially if they aren't receiving proper nurturing in their work, are limited. I aim to work education into the model at some point and try to focus my efforts there better, as they never really expanded beyond getting some good material I'd read and sending it out to followers on Twitter.
The new goal is to turn DepressiveHacks into a catch-all conglomerate. Everything that I have done with DepressiveHacks and in the online space is self-funded. The biggest thing about the DHR&D Publisher project and having DepressiveHacks become a Yondar Reseller is big in the development of this vision because they have the potential to actually generate revenue for the project. By no means am I here to steal from the ecosystem. I think there is so much potential in being here and despite DepressiveHacks maybe looking completely different this time next year, there's something to be said for not having to create everything out of my own pocket and having the progress of DepressiveHacks be so limited by the pay of my real life personal work and circumstances.
As the vision develops, I will continue to create updates about what is happening and where you can find DepressiveHacks hitchhiking across the virtual galaxy. It has been really humbling to start this and I will continue to work as best I can. There are a lot of awesome places where I can see this going. I am going to wrap this up now but I appreciate all of you readers who continue to lend your eyes and time to this blog. Nothing but the best wishes for you all.