@Gadrian wrote an article yesterday that tagged me in it talking about posting consistently. He had used HiveSQL to dig up a bit of data, finding that it had been 237 days of consistent posting without missing a day. That is a decent effort that not many people can claim having a run of, other than those automators.
Me!
According to HiveSQL, the last day I missed posting was the 16th of November 2017, which was toward the end of the first year I was on Hive, with my sixth Hive birthday coming up at the end of January 2023. And, while my memory isn't that great, I think there was a problem with the blockchain that prevented me from posting that day, though not completely sure. I feel though, that I haven't missed a day where I could have posted, since mid-2017. But, close enough :)
As I see it, consistency is required to do pretty much anything of value in this world, whether it be investing or in skill development. I try to get Smallsteps to understand this, but it is difficult for a six year old to grasp, that easy to achieve means that it likely isn't worth achieving.
When it comes to Hive, 1868 days of consistency, which is 266 weeks, or 5.13 years without missing a post has come at a cost, but I am also quite content that in all of that time, I haven't really slacked much or shitposted. While not everything is gold, there is enough quality in there that I can be happy with my efforts and know that the consistency isn't just over that time period, but also has held to my own standards of doing my best each day.
And this has been challenging to do, as during those five years, I have posted whilst in the midst of some of the most brutal moments of my life, and I have had plenty of brutal prior to this to compare it against.
One of the worst was when we had woken to Smallsteps having seizures, unresponsive and taken to hospital when she was a year and a half old. While in the hospital, there was little that could be done other than spending time together, but I would get away for an hour or so occasionally to write and it helped get some distance from the situation, reflect and process all that was bubbling within. And, I wrote everyday I myself was in hospital too, including a few hours after I had had a stroke.
I asked someone the other day that when we looked back at what we had written on Hive, whether we would wish we had added something different. While I am sure there are a lot of changes I might make, overall, Hive has become a record of the last six years of my life and explores the experience from multiple angles that are both positive and negative. Life is full of ups and downs and out of the 5,647 posts and 56,544 comments committed to the Hive blockchain, there is likely a pretty good representation of this period, as well as some reflections on my past experiences that happened before. While it can all seem very volatile;
A life is consistent.
No matter what happens to us and how much we change throughout our lives, we are always consistently "us". So much can happen that shifts what we think, what we believe and what we do, but most of our lives get lost between the day to day, the mundane. Even the most important parts that we say we will never forget, become ravaged by time and lost so that when we try to recall or retell them, they are no longer close to true to what happened or how we felt about them in that moment.
One of the key reasons that I have been so consistent on Hive is that I want to leave something for my daughter to read about our lives together and get a view of her own life through my eyes. I also want her to get a perspective on what she would never see as a child, as while she knows I work and work a fair bit, "work" is quite meaningless to her, as she doesn't understand what I do or why I do it. I believe that being able to look back into the past and get a sense of what lay beneath her childhood will help her in her own life too.
And, of course it helps me, as I believe that through writing and reflection, I end up a better person in general, a better parent for her and for myself. Better doesn't mean good, it just means not worse than I was prior - there is a very long way to go.
This is the last day of 2022 and a new calendar year begins tomorrow. But when we all wake up, nothing has ultimately changed. If we want something different, we have to do something different, but doing nothing will not keep life the same - it is always in flux, always shifting.
A new year is a good time to reflect on where we are and what has got us to this point and then, make a plan as to what we are going to do differently in the future or, whether we are happy doing what we have been doing still.
Personally, I am not happy doing what I have been doing, though some parts I am content to keep. Changes need to be made in my life and I am going to start getting back into the groove of what my own life philosophy has been for years. A bit at a time, everything changes.
And all of us change.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
