A Year in Pixels

As a state officer, one of our responsibilities is to write a blog every six weeks. At the beginning of the year when we talked about writing blogs, I thought “every six weeks wouldn't be that bad; something exciting is bound to happen within six weeks of my life that I could blog about it.” Well, for the past week and a half I have had a blank document open on my laptop, just waiting for my blog to be written. I thought of a few topics that I could maybe write something worthwhile for people to read, but the document still sat there, blank.

            Every year, one of my friends sits down and makes a bucket list for that year; it’s like her own little new year tradition. I always admired her for this. She knew exactly what her new year would bring and what she would accomplish, where I on the other hand would stay up until midnight wondering and hoping the new year would be as good as the last. There is one major difference between my friend and I: she is making the decision to make her year great, while I am letting the environment and people around me decide for me.

            This new year tradition reminded me of my blank document. Each year we get to start new.  We are given a blank document we can write on all year long. It is completely up to us to make this year count.  It is also completely up to us the decide if 2018 is a good year, a bad year, or (I hope for all of us) the best year yet. We might get a new start every year, but we also get a new start every day. I believe we have a decision every day: make that day great or allow ourselves to get caught up in daily tasks and a negative attitude making our day go downhill fast.

              Going into 2018, I wanted to find a way to track my days. I truly want to make 2018 a great

year, a positive year, the best year. So, I researched some ways to do this. A classic way for tracking your year is journaling, meaning I would challenge myself to write everyday of the year. Take a minute and read that again. Writing words, on a page, every day. Anyone who knows me, knows I am not good writing things. Even go back to my very first blog: I talk about how I noticed immediately the differences between my teammates and I when it comes to taking notes or writing important things down. I don't do that; it's just not me and I am totally okay with that. While completing my research, I came across this picture captioned “A year in pixels” that intrigued me. The idea behind this is that you can visualize your year on one sheet of paper. You start off by making a grid, 12 rows across (one for each month of the year), and 30/31 rows down (every day of the month). You then assign colors to moods (like the one in the picture), or label them great day, good day, average day, bad day, or even a terrible day. At the end of the day, you color in that square. As time progresses you can see how your attitude is affecting your days and see how good your year is going.  This year I am going to complete this challenge. I want to make sure that during my 2018, I spend all of my days happy, energetic, and positive (plus there is no writing involved). By laying out my year in pixels, I can hold myself accountable to this goal.  

            The quote at the bottom of this picture says, “just remember, even your worst day only last 24 hours.” This is a great reminder to us; however, I believe our attitude determines our destination. So as much as I think that this quote is a good reminder, I believe it is even better to remember your worst day only lasts as long as you let it.  So, let’s start this new year making the decision to make it the best year yet instead of just sitting back and letting the year play out only hoping this year will be as good as the last. Our time is now. Make the decision. Decide to make 2018 a great year!    

Stationed by the Emblem of Washington, 

Spencer Flood