> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://werd.io/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # My 2016 year in review - URL: https://werd.io/my-2016-year-in-review/ - Published: 2015-12-28T20:44:23.000Z - Updated: 2015-12-28T20:44:23.000Z - Author: Ben Werdmuller - Tags: #Import 2025-06-13 09:25 ![](http://old.werd.io/file/5657ad1ebed7dee060994f01/ighUHNdG.jpg) Rather than taking a retrospective look back at 2015, I think it's interesting to look ahead think about what I want my themes for the next year to be, both personally and professional. Here's mine; I'd love to see yours. **Be more social.** I want to spend more time around more people. Humans are social animals; spending more time around people has an important effect on my mood (as well as opening new horizons and opportunities). I love people, but I spend a lot of my time behind a screen. When I'm on my deathbed, I don't think I'll look back and think, "gosh, I wish I'd spent more time on the Internet". I want to spend more time away from a screen, not thinking about work or computers, hanging out with people I care about. And guess what: I bet it'll improve my work, too. **Be healthier.** I’ll turn 37 in the first week of 2016\. As much as I hate to admit it, I have to acknowledge that I’m approaching middle age. I intend to live past 90, but that doesn’t happen by chance. I'm also worried about what happens if I encounter a major health issue later in life. If you have to have a major operation - something many people I love have had to do - your chances of survival and recovery are much better if you're fit. It still feels a bit weird to be accepting my own mortality, but that's just stage one; stage two is *embracing* it. **Accept the superficial.** I was brought up to believe that appearance doesn't matter; that it's what's inside that counts. This *should* be true, but it isn't at all. I know that my personal appearance affects how I feel, even aside from first impressions, but even today, I feel actively guilty for thinking about it. This is a very silly thing to be worried - particularly given what I do for a living. I could write a whole essay about all the issues at play here. It's a weird hang-up. **Be more organized.** Specifically, I'm going to start scheduling more of my off-time in the same way that I schedule meetings. Not only will this allow me to schedule in gym time and other exercise, but keeping a tighter schedule will give me more free time for chilling out, hanging out, personal creativity, and trying new things: all vital parts of being an actual human being. **Separate creativity and work.** I've repeated this quote before: "the business of business is business". Work can be creative, which is awesome, but very few of us are lucky enough to have a job that is our creative outlet. I think if you try and shoehorn that creative need in, you run the risk of being unsatisfied both with your creativity and with your job. I want to write more; draw more; publish short stories and write more personal pieces. And in turn, I want to be more focused in my work. What I build does not need to be a reflection of me, and in turn, who I am is not a reflection of what I build. This perhaps sounds trite and reductive, but it's important. **Be more "me".** In 2016, I want to be more political. I'm less interested in tweeting links than actually marching on the streets, phoning representatives and doing real work to support the causes and politicians I believe in. I believe in a fairer society, globally, and I'm not ashamed to want to advocate and fight for that. I want to live in a progressive society. So politics is one thing. But I value art, and creativity, and outsider culture. I want to spend more of my time in the kinds of anarchic artistic communities I was a part of in Edinburgh. Mainstream culture is deeply conservative, and deeply boring. I think the voices pushing at the edges are usually the most interesting, and I think it's a real shame that there aren't more safe spaces for them. I want to be more experimental in my personal expression. I want to be more supportive of the voices I value. I want to be clearer in my non-support for the status quo. I don't think this hurts what I do (although I'd do it even if it did). In a world that's becoming increasingly algorithmic and computational, our humanity is our sustainable competitive advantage. It's good to be a person. I want to nurture more of myself, and more of the people around me, in the year ahead.