The Game, Lap #2

Feb 24th, give or take a day, I completed the MonopolyGo "Origins" Album. 

Took me a bit to burn down the Album Completion Rewards, and that helped sock up some stickers for "Lap 2" - the race to complete the same sets + 5 "prestige" sets before the remaining 30+ days (now 26+) expire. 

Unfortunately, when this happens you lose any of your extras, though - thankfully - you retain their star value for trade-ins for vaults. I lost quite a few extra gold-rimmed stickers, and 2 4-star tradeable stickers that I forgot to rehome. One of those I've since regained, with a lead on the other. 

Below, are my 26 sets, sorted by priority/focus for potential completion, not by Set number. Looking forward to a new shield :)

Then there are these, and I do think if I finish any prestige sets, "The Racecar" is the most promising...

Next up - Fever! has been pretty good to me. I've considered Sweet Success for Wild, and if I were to use it on a 4-star, it'd be Augmented Boss, as Monopoly VR is probably my 2nd best shot at a prestige.

Continuing onward to ones that were challenging last time, and no doubt would be again...

Monopoly Moments would be fun to finish because of "Cattitude" and "Flippin' Out", which are pretty relatable if you've ever played the classic game. Doggopoly might be easier than Game Awards or a few others, but I remember the bottom row was pretty challenging last time around, and with 2 Gold, I'm afraid that dog rides toward the back ;-)

I'm surprised that The Rubber Ducky doesn't come with a Gold Duck token. (Album 1 had a rubber duck token with a set. The whole album had a car, and the Prestige Album has a gold car.) It's a fun set, but so far it's the Prestige set in which I have the fewest cards, and with lots of 5-star and gold-rimmed action required, I think it's the least likely.

Now, we come to the ones I've wrapped up for the second time. By Set #, in descending order...

Continuing backward...

Finally, rounding out the album.

The Game

Here is my current status on the game:

And...

Continuing on to the next 3 sets...

Like a kick in the rear, here comes the boot...and more!

With Tokenmania the lone set unfinished in Lap 1, here comes more...

All below are updated as of February 22, '24!

Finally, also updated as of the same day, and closing out the sets...

Hope, Detours, and Alternative Realities

I'm backtracking a bit for February's Blog Post, but I've had this topic on my mind since then, if not longer; the launching point: a Facebook post inviting users to share what short message they'd send their teenage self if given the opportunity. I'm not sure who started it, or I'd given credit for the prompt.
 

Regardless of who started it, I know it's a question many of us have asked ourselves. I'm sticking with the answer that I gave over a month ago: "It May Go Differently." Those words represent a reality with which I've had a problem for some time. When one is seventeen, on the precipice of making choices that - unlike most previous ones - one knows will impact adulthood - they're foreboding, representing the possibility of failure. In fact, I dare say that those of us who were most focused on our futures at such a young age were likely among the least prepared to deal with the uncertainty and risk of failure those words represented to us. To know you can influence the direction of your own life is indeed empowering, but to think your life can be enriching and planned is a disillusion that school and adolescence can feed. Then the diet changes.

As years progressed, I had a mix of jealousy and awe when I would see others taking what I term "detours" in life, by which I mean doing what they thought they should or what they thought necessary at the time even if it took them far afield of their plans, and trusting that they (or God) would get back on track when the time is right. How can you know? (After all, if you admit the plan didn't work out, what makes you think it will?) What if you get lulled into the routine security of a daily grind you would never have chosen from the outset, too scared to leave it's reliability to take an on-ramp back to the less secure route toward your aspirations?

Now, I think my concern was mostly right as it applies to those for whom a detour was seen as just that, because they ignored the same thing that I did: "the plan" is neither perfect nor static. As a consequence, not all deviations from it are letting yourself down. Sometimes, our aims and values change, while others become intensified and enriched. I'm not going to drone on about "maturity," a term that I think is too often used as a shiny veneer for settling, or as a way to exalt your own preferences by putting others down (as "immature"). I just have in mind gaining more self-awareness. Across the years, as I've ventured out into more situations - without the need to be worldly, a social butterfly, or masterful in my field by any stretch - I've learned more about myself. Sometimes what I want is really what I want, so I don't lose sight of that, while in other instances I realize other values, other aspects of life, make what I thought I wanted less important.

Ironically, in my career, I'm getting back "on course" only after a detour of sorts. The detour wasn't nearly as hard as the one with which some people are faced, nor as those I feared facing in the past and dodged only by the Grace of God, Family, and Friends, but it did make me see that sentiments like isolation and disappointment would prod me to continue to strive for something better. I have hope that I'm moving forward now.

At the same time, I'm wondering if I missed out on what mattered most. I would like to share this better place with the special individual with whom I was privileged to share a good portion of the last year. Begrudgingly, I accept that there is no one "linchpin" that caused us to not work as a couple, but I do believe if I'd wrestled with career and financial uncertainty with much more grace, trust, and calm, we might still be together. If the opportunity I'm enjoying today had come a bit sooner, we might be sharing it today. Would we have had years ahead of us if we could have skipped a few months?

Along with my hope and gratitude - which are very real, I assure you - I'm left with a few questions. Reflectively, I wonder if I realized then how special we were, and trusted her to realize it, if I could have chosen to "bet" on us before having this kind of "launch" in my field and trust that it was a choice? Prospectively, now that I think I may be on a better footing, will I get another chance to build what I could have if I'd known this opportunity would come, or if it would have come earlier? Both questions center around a simpler one, "If something had happened sooner - either an external event or an internal realization/appreciation - would it all be different?"

The third question may strike some as a bit more bizarre. Because there are at least two "changepoints" where I see my life going very differently, part of me sometimes wonders if there is an alternative reality taking place in which I'm sharing a brighter future with her? Partly, I do enjoy some metaphysics, especially as it relates to time, but aside from those quandries, I wonder what this yearning represents. Is it just lingering attachment and/or self-doubt, or is it something more? A Spiritual message through a rift? A pull to merge the two into a more coherent, fulfilling, unified life? 

I'm pretty sure any answers will flow more from accepting that, "it may go differently."  

What if you don't like how the story ends? Rewrite the Beginning.

Greetings from 2016! This will be a short post to kick start blogging in the New Year, but I wanted to expound on a thought I had that ties to some articles and books I've been reading.

There's an article that gleans some life lessons from House of Cards - finding diamonds in the rough that is the character of Frank Underwood (played by Kevin Spacey). One episode quote that gets at what I want to discuss is one he made to his House protégé Jackie:

"If you don't like how the table is set, turn over the table"

The author, @robynrl, draws the conclusion that one shouldn't just let events happen to him or her. That's often sage, no doubt, but I'd add that it also addresses how to exercise influence over a situation: question the premises!  

When is it better to reject the entire "game" over playing within its confines? We don't always have to cause a ruckus by acting destructively to "turn over the table," sometimes we just walk away from it, or look at it a different way. The important point isn't the imagery, it's to not assume the way the "deck is stacked" has to be a given.

Another entombment we often hear is, "if you don't like the way your story ends, rewrite the ending!" What I asked myself this month is, why don't we ever tell people to rewrite the beginning? So often in life situation, what we do many moves back has a large - if not always decisive - impact on the ending. Sure, sure, we should focus on what we can do until it ends, but we can't be blind that many moves ago, we already had an impact.

Too often, this is seen as a cause for melancholy and regret; after all, "I left my time machine on Earth, did you bring yours?!" (A fun Stargate Atlantis quote that sums up the futility that leads to exasperation by nay-saying past decisions.) What I would suggest is it doesn't have to be a time-traveling pipe dream or excuse to exasperate your friends by pretending all is too late, if looked at the right way. 

Psychology recognizes the impact that internalized narratives have on our way of thinking. For examples, two authors I've been reading, Drs. Michelle Skeen and Brené Brown, for example, both "our stories" can keep us remaking similar mistakes if we don't raise them to awareness, engage them, question them, and do some editing. Significantly, what is extremely helpful is to ditch the advice some will give you to just "quit thinking" thoughts that are part of your "internal beliefs." On the contrary, you have to initially recognize them and stop trying to push them away before you can permit them less hold on your actions and subsequent thoughts, as well as recast them in a new dye.

In Game Theory, we study repeating games. If one stage has an outcome that is carried over to the next stage, that feedback will likely continue to have an impact (for better or worse). We can't change the past, but if we interrupt the instant xeroxing of the elements of our "beginnings" and rewrite the beginning of the next stage, the next challenge, the perception of the next opportunity, then that feedback - that carried balance from life's ledger - will be handled in a different way. We can change how the deck is stacked.

Without any quantum wormholes necessary, we can put another leaf in the table!

Reboot: New Year's Resolutions

So, I kicked off 2015 with a post of 10-12 New Year's Resolutions. As the year comes to a close, I must admit I haven't kept many of them. It definitely wasn't a failure, though, and here's why:

• I kept a few. I'm now gainfully employed, and I've had to move the pet that I mentioned wanting to give TLC on two occasions in order to do that, but we managed well!
• Even those not kept were motivating, and I have made progress on some that are of the open-ended variety.
• I can try again. I've heard some say, because these resolutions are rarely kept, why bother? For me, it helps me get my own buy-in, and gives me a large enough window (a whole year) that I can see some progress.

To that end, time to start again! Here are my New Year's Resolutions for 2016:

1. Build on last year's gains, bring more focus and direction to my career, and have tangible improvement to show by September.
2. Replace a particular bad habit into which I relapsed in 2014.
3. Be more patient with my older pet, who is more apt to get bored/restless.
4. Improve a particular familial relationship, and, another which is complementary...
5. Let go of resentment, anger, grudges, and mistrust that are in play in 3 relationships, especially a romantic ghost from the past.
6. Continue to cherish my friendships, and not let life's highs or lows distract me from them.
7. Develop better anxiety coping skills so that when I'm feeling pressure or insecure in one or multiple areas of my life, I don't allow that stress to intrude upon other areas of my life.
8. Exercise at least twice a week!
9. Return to Patio Gardening.
10. Develop more financial discipline and return to a relatively more secure footing. Be on a route toward monthly solvency and a small amount of savings by the end of the year.
11. At some point during the year, start dating again, but not with walls built up from the past.
    
12. Continue to develop my confidence and independence.
13. Continue to journal weekly - something I did manage to do last year.
14. Blog once a month - something I obviously did not do.
15. As small as it sounds - do the dishes more regularly!

Some of last year's resolutions that have reappeared - like patio gardening - were allowed to lapse partly because of a major life change that happened in 2015: I moved. After living in the same apartment for multiple years - my first since moving away from home - I moved into one that I never grew to like. Now, if the unit were just not quite what I had hoped, I'd still try to make the best of it, but I also knew from day one that I might not be there long enough to "lay down roots," so I didn't do much of that literally in the form of plant roots.

Now, I love my apartment, and no matter how long I'm here, I'm definitely going to spruce it up. It's winter, but as long as I'm still here in March, there will be some plants on my patios! Technically, there already is one. I'm going to enjoy this place as long as I have it.

New Year's Resolutions for 2015

Among the posts that never got written last month, I still plan to double-back later in the next few weeks and write one on an article. For now, I wanted to share my New Year's Resolutions. To kick things off, there is one that I'm acting to keep right now: journal once a week, and blog at least once a month! So, expect next December to be more fruitful.

Two are a little personal, so I'll just share them generally. In 2014, I resumed a bad habit that I had broken prior to moving, and I aim to leave it behind again. Insofar as the other resolutions help me reduce my stress, this will be more attainable, and I plan to incentivize it, too. The other is to improve a close familial relationship that I've let sour.

A fourth resolution is to "Improve Confidence", which is pretty broad. Too often, I've found the problem with extant advice on confidence is precisely that it is a phrase thrown around too generally, which leads to treating it like something you can just "hype up" or turn on by sheer will. So, I put some sub-goals to help guide me:

• Let go of hate.
  (I'm happy to say I've felt this happening, not that I harbored a lot of it.)
• Forgive Self ...and God.
• "Find a way to navigate" ...by which I think I meant social settings instrumental in achieving my goals; and, 
• See (my) worth, and stuff to offer. 

In two works I read by Brené Brown, she stresses the importance of a healthy appreciation of your own worth to creativity, extending empathy to yourself, and taking risks and being vulnerable without catastrophic results. In that vein, it's not meant as a mere self-esteem boost, but as instrumental to helping me as I go forward into the new year. A friend recommended a book to glean more from life's experiences, and I've already ordered it.

Five of the remaining Six:

• Regenerate capacity to connect (with others)
• Be a better friend
• Give thanks, (and) be joyful for - and good to - "Bob".
  (This one is easy - one of the best parts of 2014!)
• Return to Gardening. ...Stay tuned this Spring!
• Start exercising again at least twice every full week.
  (Ideally, every other day, but this is set so I can work up to it, and so when I get that rhythm going, a brief miss doesn't wreck the resolution.)

Lastly, I resolve to find a new job...and direction. I only see the last part of that resolution as within my control. While I can influence the likelihood of finding employment, through my experience last year I became quite resigned that this is, at least to a significant extent, out of my hands. I can take actions to improve my odds, and shall, but as I'm not in a profession I can pursue by self-employment (at least until I have a pedigree with which to consult), I will need someone to extend an offer. I hope this happens early in the year.