2008 was not My Best Year Ever

Around about a year ago I was sitting quietly with my journal musing on the cover story of January's "Men's Health" in an entry that is now perhaps appropriately hidden after it was bombarded by spambots countless times.

Quote:
2008 will be my best year ever. At least, according to this months edition of Men's Health and its pages of weight training tips and monthly reminder to masturbate regularly to avoid prostate cancer. Sure, I might not be able to get a promotion whilst having the greatest sex of my life and raising a family who can bench press 150% of their body weight. But I think I can take something from this issue: a positive attitude. Because I was just going to approach 2008 like every year, expecting the average. But now, it's going to be the best year ever! Needless to say, it's very exciting.

Now in reflection it seems 2008 was perhaps not my best year ever, although it has plenty of positives and negatives. I think rather than celebrate or scratch the last 12 months I'd rather relive them and try and head off a few of the things that happened that I could have lived without. But what might happen to serendipity? Would I still stumble upon a bio for obscure Bloc Party-wannabes Jupiter One and discover I have manlove for David Byrne? If I hadn't procrastinated on leaving home so long would I be living somewhere shitter than I do now, a place without apricot trees?

I mean in actuality I did achieve a lot of my goals and kept pace with my resolutions from January. Although I didn't learn Mandarin. The problem seems to be the old monkey paw wish conundrum; my resolutions just weren't specific enough. I actually did get that promotion - and a whole bunch of extra responsibility and stress - but international mergers and "Global Financial Crises" meant I didn't get the accompanying payrise. Similarly I smashed my bench press record one great day in August, got sick a few days after and then the day after that destroyed the cartilage in my wrist which still hasn't healed. I'm not even going to mention sex in case I do anything to jinx my winky in the last 24 hours.

And then, after inflating such hopes for this year 365 days ago, the new January Men's Health arrived with the cover article "2009 Your Best Year Ever!" Delivered completely nonchalantly as if 2008 being the best year ever was some flight of fancy and only the idiots wouldn't realise you were supposed to wait until 2009. So fuck it, 2009 is going to be less about goals and more about addressing any and all pressing issues on any echelon of Maslow's Need Hierarchy in whatever patterns they're thrown at me. Less disappointment that way, and it makes it much harder to procrastinate. I'm also canceling my subscription to Men's Health.

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