Recap of Parz's Livestream, 5 Jan 2025 (2025 Ambitions, Behaviourceuticals)

 To dive straight into the Livestream, here's the link:

And for anyone who wants the recap, keep reading!

• Using the same reframing of how to view a year as we did last livestream, introduce the new guy, 2025

For the coming year, 2025 has a few ideas on how to view the upcoming year:

• Guidelines, not Resolutions
• Themes and Directions, not Firm Goals
• List things I like doing 

And from a presentation standpoint, do it from the view of an incoming Executive.

A few ideas then came forward:

• Keep doing three things from the prior year
• Identify what you enjoy but don’t make time for - aim to do those things more
• Couple habits you already do with habits you want to create

Based on all this, I wrote the following story/setup for incoming 2025:

Deep breath. Crack knuckles. Shake things out. 

Let’s get started.

As 2025 got ready to take over from 2024, he thought about the kind of year he wanted to create. He wanted to guide things in a certain direction but take into account that things don’t always go as planned. He wanted to set things up so as to reduce stress but still try to make this year better than last year.

So the first thing he did was to write his future self a letter to be read at the end of the year so as to compare notes with what was intended against what actually happened.

• Write a letter to Future 2025 about the direction, the goals, and the intentions of the incoming year

And so I wrote this to my future self:

Dear Future 2025 (aka me),

As I ready myself to take on the coming year, that is to say, my namesake, I want to bring to mind and attention ideas and directions I want to highlight.

These items are in no particular order, but they are all important to me.

The first item on my list is to keep on collaborating with Aleesha. I really enjoy how my creativity has blossomed doing these collaborations and look forward to seeing where my creativity goes. And I want to do this work not with any creative goal or use of content in mind but instead for the pure enjoyment of doing the work.

As another item, I want to better react to unexpected and/or unpleasant situations. When I encounter a situation that is unexpected or unpleasant, I will do my best to remember my breath and take the time needed to breathe first before acting. The goal is to not react and instead to act mindfully. And when I fail to remember my breath, I will use that as an opportunity to remember my breath for the next time.

I will try to remember that music is good for my mental health. I will take the opportunities presented to play my loud, obnoxious music when I have the ability to take the time.

One last item for now (because I can always add more to this list) is to embrace my love of learning and of being a math and science geek/nerd/lover. I will continue to read and share things during these livestreams and make references to them in my writing because they are part of what makes my experience enjoyable.

For instance, I’m going to make mention right now that 2025 is the sum of the cubes of the numbers 1 through 9, which I think is really cool.

And that’s it for now. See ya in about a year.

New 2025

• Behaviourceuticals

Inc.com ran an article on how overcoming small challenges can lead to greater life satisfaction and, in fact, give the same benefits from antidepressants (and I'll note there are no side-effects!)