Tinkering with my 3D Printer. It's a filament printer, but after a lot of fine tuning, I'm able to print small D&D miniatures with mixed quality. It's not perfect, but it is getting closer.

Ignoring abuse.

I didn't say it was healthy, I just said I've improved at it.

Digital art.

Where I started:

How is going:

I've become more accepting as to where I am in my life.

More often, I've been recalling the quote from Christine Mason Miller. "At any given moment, you have the power to say: this is not how the story is going to end."

I've started playing the harmonica, so I've gone from having no idea to being able to play some simple songs.

I opened this question and realised with a sense of dread that I don't think I have an answer to this question; often it feels like my days are slipping by without making meaningful progress in the things I care about.

That may or may not be true, but regardless, I'm going to use this space to improve at self forgiveness. It's difficult to show myself the compassion I deserve as a human, but it's easier if I try to think of myself as a dear friend. If I were my friend, I'd feel proud of me for my strength, and angry on my behalf at the fact I am having to endure so much bullshit that is holding me back. I'd feel sad, but hopeful for the hypothetical future where I might be more free to make progress on my goals.

Without a frame of reference, I don't think this constitutes improvements on anything per se. However, by setting my flag down here and underscoring my intent to be kinder to myself, I am creating a future where I will be able to look back on this comment and think "wow, such progress". The second best time to plant a tree is now, and all that.

I'd say drawing textures.

Meditation and it's changed my life for the better. I control my negative thoughts now.

Brushing my teeth.

Recently had a root canal and a massive wakeup call of fragile teeth.

It's been a hard habit to stick with but the wife keeps me accountable.

I’ve gotten better about taking book notes.

I was thinking of ways to eliminate as much friction as possible, so I made an iOS shortcut that takes a URL from a share link in The Storygraph (the app I use for tracking my books) and sends it to an API endpoint I made that returns a deep link for Obsidian (the app I use for notes) which automatically creates a note for me with Title - Author format in my preferred subdirectory for book notes.

It seems like a silly thing to go through so much trouble to automate, but it was a tedious barrier to get a new note going when a thought came to me as I was reading, and I actually have gotten much better at taking book notes since I made it.

I'm slowly beginning to understand Japanese enough that I can turn off subtitles and still understand like 25% of what's being said.

Meanwhile my ability to read it is starting to fall because I haven't turned the romaji off and I keep finding myself reading that and not the katakana/hiragana/kanji.

I used to make a similar sandwich with ham and spinach every day, but recently I've been mixing it up and cutting some mozzarella, some pickled peppers, pickles, and a variety of meat and sauce. It's way better than what I used to do.

I'm learning to drive. After a big pause I felt like I forgot everything completely, but since I started doing lessons regularly again I can see steady improvements

I've become better at talking to people. Overcoming my past trauma and social anxiety has made me so much happier and at peace. Now I'm on the path to fostering meaningful connections with people who help me grow as a person, and hopefully the other way around as well.

Understanding computers and networking. I’m so far away from truly understanding it all, but I’m working on studying for the A+ exams so I can get the basics for entry into an IT field. All of this is so interesting to me and I genuinely love learning it!

I worked in marketing, specifically SEO, for the past 9 years. I’m sick of it/Google’s bullshit, and I want to change to a career where I can do some tech work and help people solve problems.

Cooking. I've been trying new recipes lately and realised I have enough experience under my belt to sorta predict the result I'm going to get based on the ingredients and method.

Cooking with rice. I was never big on rice, so never had particular ambitions for experimenting with it.
Then I found a rice variety in the shops, which actually tastes nice on its own, and also you're allowed to just dump it into a pot of water, then drain the remaining water, which I much prefer for experimenting.

And yeah, that has led to me catching up with experimenting very quickly. Last week I made basically a risotto using:

• rice
• red lentils
• vegetable broth
• coconut milk
• bell peppers
• caraway
• teriyaki sauce
• sriracha sauce

...and last, but definitely not least, orange slices.

And it tasted fucking rad. That's my favorite feature of rice. You can throw in the wildest ingredients and it magically makes them work together.

Been playing a lot with my butterfly knife, and I'm about to perform my first stage act with it. Definitely looking forward to showing off!

Only cut myself three times writing this act

I've been getting better at making small but meaningful changes to my life by recognizing that a lot of it is simply habit/routine and making an earnest effort at thinking of ways in which I can modify them, and making an earnest effort at applying them.

Very generally: Think of something I do that I might want to curb, think of why that thing is what I do, think of things I could do that would impede on my ability to do those things, and implement those changes.

Couple specifics:

I'm fond of beer. I don't binge or anything but if it's in the fridge I'm probably gonna grab one every couple of hours, and that's not too healthy and kind of a waste of money, so now, when I buy beer I just toss a couple cans in the fridge and put the rest in the cabinet above the fridge. If I run out I'll toss a couple in the next day. Now I drink a lot less because I'm not gonna drink warm beer and when I open the fridge I see the scarcity and tend to just shut the fridge and walk away.

I'm an introvert and I love reading about things and events, non-fiction crap, walking around on Wikipedia and stuff. It drives my wife up the wall when I'm doing and I don't blame her because I'm bad at listening when I'm not giving my full undivided attention, so I removed all my phone chargers except for the one in the bedroom. Now, I just set my alarms and plug in the phone, walk into the other room, get out of that headspace, and engage my wife in conversation.

This july I finally realized that I have no choice but consciously change the ways I think and react to things. There has been plenty of difficult things in my life the last couple of years and after experiencing a burnout (again, I understood afterwards it's not the first time but hasn't been this bad before) this summer I had to look myself in the mirror and decide to start making changes, things can't go on like this anymore, I can't keep on living like this anymore. It's sad that it seems often these realizations only come when one hits the bottom in a way or another.

I've been to a 3-year therapy and tried meds and so on, I'm sure they "paved the path" but didn't help me comprehend why I have these troubles that I have and didn't give me the understanding/empathy towards myself and others that is needed to actually change the thought and reaction models that are problematic, especially anger and shame issues.

Anyways I've been looking at videos on youtube about CPTSD and they have helped me a lot. Especially I find Tim Fletcher's videos useful as he thoroughly looks into the underlying issues and different ways CPTSD shows up in people, just the facts as they are. He's kind of an old school lecturer type guy, nothing fancy and shiny (needs to be taken with a grain of salt though as he doesn't seem to have understanding on ADHD/autism and has religious aspects in some of his videos).

Of course being recently diagnosed with ADHD gives more light to why I'm the way I am. But now I've been able to start to work on my stuff from a different angle and it seems to take an effect! A difficult and rocky path but I suppose the first steps are the hardest.

Headshots in video games.

Skateboarding. Started at 30 and I'm 31 now. I can drop in the mini half pipe, rock to fakie, and tailstall now. It's a lot of fun pumping back and forth in a mini half pipe. Feels like what I imagine surfing feels like.

The first time i start cycling long-ish distance(35-38km) for errands is in early august. Even though using ebike, my leg is still sore for 2 days or so after the trip.

I just did 43km yesterday, my legs are still fine despite feeling tired yesterday. So that's an improvement. Am i fitter? Absolutely...not feeling it lol.

Working out. I finally realized that my psychological issue with working out was doing a long duration thing that I didn't like. My solution was a high intensity short workout which doesn't bother me at all from a mental perspective, so now I do burpees. Quick and over before I have a chance to not like it.

Personal finance, spent too long not giving it proper respect and being scared of anything that wasn't a basic bank account. Used the plum app for a few years and it really opened my eyes to how it all works. This year marked me taking it seriously like everyone wish I started earlier.

Patience. I think I just no longer have the energy to get that uptight about things. Benefits of being a quinquagenarian, it would seem. It should come with some damn benefits other than back and joint pain.

Picked dwarf fortress back up again, learning all the new things and changes feels really good. Getting decent at it!

Playing chess.

I learned it in my youth and was fairly good at it back then. Recently I started to play regularly with some friends, and it went quite rusty at first, but I'm catching up now :)

Living on my own and being independent. It's a kind of constant process. But still.

Actually can't think of anything IRL, but I've recently picked up a couple new heroes in Overwatch and have been having a lot of fun with them.

But it's a very good question that made me think of (my) life quite a bit. Thanks for that!