I like to look back and evaluate the previous year. I’ve been doing it since I was a sophomore in high school.
Many of us do it around the New Year, but I wait until the middle of February to do my assessment.
I have a simple diagram or chart. The horizontal line is the x-axis, and the vertical line is the y-axis. My horizontal line has the years starting with 1966 through 2024. The y-axis is numbered 1 through 10. Real simple….
When I started this evaluation back in 1982, I decided that the first five years were hard to determine.
So, I drew a straight line at level six. It’s the first five years of life. I didn’t remember much besides singing “Let there be peace on earth” at Kindergarten graduation.
Sister Balthazar hammered that song into us for weeks in the spring of 1972. Afterwards, my dad took a picture of me and Sister. I had a graduation cap and a big smile. I wish I still had that picture.
As I got into grade school my chart started hitting some fives and rallied to a couple sevens.
The year I lost my virginity was an eight. So was 1986 when the Bears won XX. The eighties were mostly six through eight.
The nineties ran with some volatility. I had a five one year, but I also topped out with a couple eight's and one nine.
The new millennium brought sevens and eights mostly with one six and two nines. That was the decade that I was married and met my sons, George and Fritz.
The 2010’s were marked with a bearish trend. The only up year was when I met Hazel. The end of the marriage created several fives and a four.
Years started to swing higher when I moved to Riverside only to sell off the highs with Covid.
The first couple years in the 2020’s have been mediocre. Ending with the last evaluation for 2024.
Drum roll please…..
2024 was a 6.5
Some of my questions were answered, but for the most part…
…. Nothing to write home about.
My doctor asked me yesterday if I ever feel depressed. I answered that life is stressful, but there is never depression.
Tomorrow morning, grab a ruler, a piece of paper and a pen, not a pencil. Chart out the years of your life. Take your time and look back at each year. It could be a solid therapeutic tool for you.
I dragged on longer than expected. Time to balance my world up onto my shoulders.
It’s Friday, end the week feeling accomplished
