2026 goals

It's 2026 now and I wanted to step back and think deliberately about the directions I want to focus on this coming year.

Hobbies

Writing. At work I've felt pretty comfortable publishing blog posts and have become somewhat of a prolific writer, and a long long time ago in school I did quite like writing. I'd like to get back into it. I'm going to treat this more public space as an opportunity to crystallize thoughts that would otherwise float cloudily through my head. Topics will include: musings about people and society, travel reports and photos, and maybe some technical blog posts. Concrete goal: publish at least one blog post here, per month.

I've already failed this one spectacularly. Although I started writing this in January, it's now the end of February, I'm just getting around to publishing this post.

Mandarin. I am Chinese, but through some childhood accident lost time to time, my Mandarin is pretty awful. This has been a recurring pain point for me throughout life -- something I'm ashamed of and that has caused me trouble, but at the same time that I've stubbornly refused to learn / somehow gaslit myself into believing that maybe it's for my own good. Anyways, better late than never -- I've been taking in-person lessons with a tutor and hope to improve my Mandarin ability to the point where I could plausibly fend for myself if I were to visit China. My current level, the remnants of what I was able to intuitively pick up on in my first few years of life, is HSK 4a. Concrete goal: Continue tutoring, and over the course of the year, finish material up to the end of HSK 5a.

Ice skating. I first had ice skating lessons as a kid in one of Canada's numerous excellent community recreation centres. While I never got that good, my partner is an excellent skater, and this reminded me of how much I love it. I've resigned myself to the fact that I won't be the next Yuzuru Hanyu, but I do want to reach some level of proficiency to the point where I can move fluidly on the ice, enjoy it on a hobby level, and mildly impress onlookers. Concrete goal: continue taking lessons and reach Adult 6.

Health

Maintain a healthy weight. Left to my own devices, I tend to lose weight. My baseline appetite is below replacement, I think my metabolism might be particularly inefficient (or maybe my gut bacteria grab too many of the calories for themselves), and it doesn't take much of a distraction for me to forget to eat. Both for health and aesthetics, I'd like to make sure I'm getting enough to each day, and continue going to the gym with the goal of building up some muscle. Uncharacteristic of my normally hyper-utilitarian self, I will explicitly prioritize gaining size over gaining strength. Concrete goal: maintain weight of 150lb. Stretch goal: reach for 160lb, assuming I can put on 10lb of muscle rather than fat.

Stay on top of benefits. My workplace provides all these benefits and they've mostly been going to waste because I never get around to scheduling appointments. Go to the dentist at least twice. See an optometrist. Have a general health checkup. And keep going to therapy.

Drink less. It's fun to drink and there are real social benefits to doing so, but also it is quite literally a poison, and I'd like to be here and healthy for the long term. The precise way I'm going to go about this is as follows: whenever I have the opportunity to drink, I have to turn it down if I did not turn down my previous opportunity to drink -- no saying yes twice in a row.

Relationships

With friends. I've always been good with maintaining a few close friends. I've been markedly less good at maintaining friendships with a wider group of not-too-close friends -- the friends you might invite to parties and go do fun things with but who you're not necessarily spilling your deepest darkest inner thoughts to. I'm going to go for, just a little bit, quantity over depth for once and to build a wider network of loose connections. Concrete goal: Meet one new person a month and actually do something with them.

With family: Call siblings and have a proper conversation with them at least once a month.

With my partner: It would be really nice to not fuck this one up.