2007 In Recap - What I’ve Learned
December 31st, 2007, by Nicholas Mercer in Living
Upon writing this article it’s not quite as simple as I was thinking it was going to be - Think about it, in all honesty, how can you truly sum up everything you’ve learned in a year without writing an entire book? The only solution - break it down and hit the highlights…
Life
Friends and Family - I’ve overlooked this all year long in exchange for focusing on money, myself, and nothing else really. Poor excuses eh?
Never underestimate what the value of your friends and your families actually are in your life because without them, you are nothing. It’s creating a state of emptiness and loneliness without either of these and you’ll be surprised how much support, happiness, and respect that these can bring to you to help you in your travels and adventures.
Education - Wow, this has been a huge thing during 2007 where everyone just seems to be dropping out of college and in some cases even High School. WHY?!When I was 16, I started working for the Department of Defense and only grew within the building while being educated at the same time. I graduated High School with no problems while working up to 40 hours a week at times, but did not complete college. This is something I’m looking to fix, but in the meantime, I have the resume to reference new employers to - what do these drop outs have?!
Financials - Money comes, Money goes, and it goes very fast. You spend all your life working for works sake in most cases and you reap a steady income flow thanks to it. Yet still at the end of the month, you feel stressed and worried about money because you’ve got plenty of bills and in some cases not enough income.
Like most people, I wasted a very good portion of my overall income this year and it’s caused a few months to be extremely tight where they should have just been comfortable.
Now moving into my new townhouse this week, having two dogs, a car payment, and really beginning to enjoy life, I’m also going to take control in my money a little more thanks for the errors I’ve learned over this year…but we’ll get into this more tomorrow for next years goals.
Forget The Past - This was/is the absolutely hardest thing for me to learn and to accept. It’s very hard to go from being one thing in your life (example: IT Technician For DoD) to becoming a Web Development guy for a local newspaper. It’s something thats very hard to deal with and accept sometimes because you know what you “could have been.”
As my parents told me over Christmas, I’m only 21 years old and it’s time to just let it all go and start over. I’m not in my 40’s and I’m not old enough to have quite “ruined” my life with mistakes, but instead I’m at the age where I should take advantage of the past.
Simply learn from mistakes/regrets, apply these learned traits onto your future, and wah-laa, you’re all done. Not that simple, but you get the idea.
Online
Startups - Wow, oh boy, it’s been a crazy year for startups and for new websites to be opening. It seem as if every geek under the sun has the next greatest idea and then some how, it just goes *poof* and ends up in the deadpool soon after it’s creation (if it even makes it this far). Why is this?Lack of effort is my general idea concerning failure. Everyone expects (and wants to be) the next Kevin Rose with a great idea that instantly succeeded without any real marketing and just word of mouth. Like blogging though, you’re not John Chow and you aren’t Kevin Rose right out of the box. Be Creative, Be Innovative, and most importantly, Be Smart.
It Takes Work… to make anything a success. I like many others out there expect to make money without having to do a whole lot of work and it’s just not working out very well with this method. In 2007 I spent more time saying “this is going to be awesome once it launches” than actually working on the project to actually make it launch. BIG FLAW!
I’m not Kevin Rose, I’m not John Chow, and I’m surely not even close to Shoemoney, but I am a geek with some interesting ideas and a pretty decent skill set. It just takes time, lots of hard work, and a pinch of effort to make anything happen. As my dad in Texas said over Christmas Vacation, “2008 is a brand new year.”
It’s been a few days since a post on this site due to my 21st birthday and launching our new site at my “full time job.” What better way to start getting back into the blogging grove than a unix post?!
I’m not quite the type to be afraid or even spooked by that which is the supernatural, but today has changed my views on this subject. I’ve lived in my house for about 6-7 months now and it’s always had a spooky aura with weird sounds, items being moved around, lights being on or off randomly, odd events, and more. Today is just felt even more odd than any other day - my speakers kept being changed right in front of us, the office was constantly cold, footsteps up and down the steps could be heard, and overall it just freaked me out! Thank god I move into the new townhouse in roughly two weeks, plus I’ll have MegaByte back at home with me.
