My Goals for 2026

12/31/2025

My goals for 2026 are as follows:

Join ICE
Create a video game and release it to the public
Read at least 5 books about theology or church history
Upload a daily journal to this website

My first goal, joining ICE, is quite ambitious. It's way out of my comfort zone, and I don't know if it's even a realistic goal. I've never been very physically active or enjoyed exerting myself, so I will need to exercise a lot to meet the requirements to join. Thankfully, I have a pretty good job already, so it's not the end of the world if I don't achieve this goal. Still, I think it would be very good for me. I may be required to move to another state. Originally, I considered this to be a downside that I was willing to put up with for the great pay and the privilege of deporting invaders. However, I now think it might be good to "restart" my life, in a sense. The home I lived in as a child was destroyed, and replaced with a crude mockery. The people I was friends with as a child are no longer a part of my life. My ambitions and aspirations have been entirely replaced. I have lost my identity. For all practical purposes, I am a different person. So rather than dwell on nostalgia, fruitlessly wishing for a past that will never return, it would be better to restart my life from zero. Hopefully, this time I will not change at all.

My second goal is to solve a problem that I didn't use to have, but has now plauged me for many years. I seem incapable of creating anything. As a child, I would often draw bizarre creatures and maps of strange places conjured from my imagination. One day, however, my imagination dried up and I stopped creating things. It is no coincidence that I have been living in misery and ruin ever since. If I finally make a game in 2026, it will be bad, but at least it will be better than Sea of Stars. I hate that game so much...

My third goal is for a pretty mundane reason: I'm curious about that stuff! I always feel behind and left out when I hear people wiser than me discussing things I feel I should know already at my age, and this will hopefully me get to the level I'm supposed to be at.

My fourth goal is perhaps the most interesting one, and perhaps harder than it sounds. I am going to add a new section to this website similar to the blog, but with a new entry every day. Instead of writing my thoughts on a specific topic, I will simply note what I did that day. I will take special care to record activities that are relevant to my other goals, such as exercising (relevant to joining ICE) and taking CG Cookie lessons (relevant to making a game).

Just like the last seven years, 2025 was a pretty rotten year for me. And yet, for the first time in a while, it seems a little less rotten than the year before. Is this... hope? Is 2026 going to be the year I finally break free? God willing, I will triumph.