A new year begins
January 1, 2024
Whew! It’s been a full year since I started this blog, and overall, it’s been fun! Today I’m going to look back at 2023, and ahead at 2024, and beyond.
First, let me say that I appreciate all of you that take a few minutes a day to read these posts. With only two minor exceptions that I can think of, I’ve stuck to my hard limit of 500 words per post. This is win-win; I show respect for your time, and prevent myself from going off on too many tangents or getting too deep in the historical weeds. (Which I would otherwise do.)
In 2023, I made 123 different posts, or an average of one every three days. It was a learning experience, and they evolved over the twelve months. The earlier ones often addressed current events, what challenges I was undertaking for the month, and how they were going. By the end of the year, it was much more of a “On this day in Gandhi’s life, ____ happened.” I find value in both of these styles.
Part of this was the failure of the 30-day challenge groups to really take off the way I’d hoped. That’s okay; the framework is built and ready to go again. I find value in self-improvement, but I also like telling stories, and so as the year went on, I enjoyed the opportunity to tell longer-form stories stretched out in real time. The ability to cross reference previous posts as the library built up, was very, very fun.
In 2024, I plan to run through the year again. This will include recycling of previous posts on noteworthy days, but because the skeleton is in place, I can put some flesh on the bones and fill in gaps. (For example, I have a number of posts about Gandhi in jail/prison but never got around to expanding on the character building aspects of those experiences.) Long-time readers will have more context… and new readers will see what they missed. And, as it’s an election year in the US, there will be some looking at a Gandhian approach to public policy, civility, and government.
I’m shooting for 200 total posts this year. After that, I’ll start closing on a year’s worth, which could then be compiled into a single book. That’s my long-term goal; a biography of Gandhi’s life told in a nonlinear fashion, structured around daily lessons on self-improvement. So stick around!
What are you optomistic about for 2024?