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Yes

14 (40%)

No

12 (34.3%)

I improved in some areas but worsened in others

4 (11.4%)

Unsure

5 (14.3%)

Total Members Voted: 35

[TheSteppeWolf]

I, personally, grew a lot. 2020 me had, cringe political and personal views (e.g anti anarchism beyond any sanity. I threw that away). I became a lot calmer, more reserved, and I feel, somewhat smarter. What prompted this is I had my birthday, 2 days ago, and I reminisced on my past year as is tradition. I don't feel I could tolerate my old self, Tbh.

[MrRoboto75]

Honestly each and every time I try to improve my life the very universe resists.

Quarantine was the happiest I'll ever be as evidently autism stops being an outright disability when you remove most everyone from life.  But obviously that cannot last forever.

[Egan_BW]

I don't think I've ever stopped making progress entirely for a whole year. On the other hand I didn't exactly start out being very impressive.

[Damiac]

Not much personal growth for me this year, except I've gotten a tiny bit better at marksmanship, and learned a bit about optics, and a little improvement on guitar.

I got better at some video games but it's a stretch to call that growth.

For the most part however I mostly stayed set in my ways. But, from past experience, I'm sure I'll see a different person looking back 5 years from now.

But I'm an old fogey now.

[Telgin]

The last year or two hasn't been great for me, and the overwhelming majority of it wasn't even related to the coronavirus.  That had very little impact on me or my mental or emotional health.  In fact, in ways, it was good for me since I'm an introvert who didn't lose his job and just got the option to sleep an hour later every morning and work remotely.

On the other hand, despite my efforts to use that time for self-improvement, I didn't do a great job.  I started studying for the CCNA exam since networking is related to my day job, but only got about halfway through the materials before getting side tracked.  I've tried to work on a computer game project, rebuild a personal website with newer technology as a learning experience and tried to write a novel, but all more or less ran into the same problem.

A lot of personal issues have just drained my motivation to do much.  I've learned the hard way that everything that doesn't kill you doesn't necessarily make you stronger.  Sometimes it just changes you and not for the better.  To randomly paraphrase Bishop from Alien 3, it's very dark here, and I'm not what I used to be.  One might consider emotional hardening to be improvement, but I'm not so sure.

So, going to go with no for the poll.  Maybe next year will be better.

[Bumber]

I've started reverse engineering DF code, so that's something, at least. We'll see if that lasts, or if depression causes me to lose interest as usual.

[KittyTac]

I'm sure everyone here knows what I think of my old self. So yes. I mean in 2020 I was stable but still slightly cringe.

[NAV]

The past year has been very good to me. I got a better job, directly because of covid. I went from a night shift line cook to fixing robots. More fulfilling, better work/life balance, much better pay.

I and my wife moved from a very run down 1 bedroom apartment to a much nicer 2 bedroom apartment.

I finally got my drivers license and started driving.

I started investing a large percent of my income. Managing my finances a lot better. Getting a house is starting to look like an attainable goal.

I improved my health. Eating a lot healthier, getting outside a lot more, fixed my posture. Gonna start lifting again when gyms open back up.

Got a kitten. A very good little cat.

Cut down my media consumption and time wastage a lot. Spend a lot more time doing things I actually care about. Doing more actual hobbies. Electronics, woodworking, gardening. Mainly watch movies/tv or play videogames as a social thing. Only way to stay in contact with some friends.

I guess the main difference is that I got lucky and got a better job because of covid. And I suppose I am the sort of introvert who thrives under the conditions normal people consider boring and lonely. Yay, have time and energy to focus and improve myself.

[heydude6]

Personal improvement for me meant working on my people skills and putting myself out there more. Covid naturally put a damper on that.

Things have been pretty stagnant for me overall. I don't think I've become worse as a person, I just feel like I'm in stasis and waiting for time to unfreeze so I can get back to my life again.

I did have opportunities to grow though, and the fact that I didn't has left many people disappointed including myself. I tried to find a job, but the job search process was ultimately too much for me and I ended up getting a temp gig through connections instead. So much for self-reliance.

School was pretty terrible as well. I got low marks in most of my courses and even failed a few. I'll have to retake those at some point.

I can't say I hate myself though. Mom's doing enough of that already so someone needs to be the one to balance it out. There's no other choice but to keep walking towards the future and hope that one day things get better.

[scriver]

Nope, not a single bit.

[wierd]

I feel the same. The pandemic only mildly inconvenienced me by having stores not be open during my normal waking hours.  I was always a reclusive shut-in, so the "Social isolation" people have been suffering from is just my normal life.

*shrug*

[methylatedspirit]

Definitely. I definitely had a latent interest in computing before this, but I feel like I'm going larval now. I'm becoming quite interested in the theory behind programming and Linux, egged on by people like Eric S. Raymond, with his many essays on Linux and open-source. I'm finally getting the appeal. It does help that I got a Raspberry Pi to execute all sorts of computery things on.

As a person overall, rather than just my interests, I've definitely improved, yeah. I beat most of my anxiety with help from my shrink, and overall, I think I'm getting better at socializing. I'm able to maintain quite good conversation with others, I've been called "absurdly smart" (I still disagree that I'm smart, but if that's the term used...) and that I'm "very normal, you have no major flaws in conversation" (paraphrased). I have developed quite a bit.

[Vector]

I think saying that I personally improved or grew doesn't really make sense in the context of some of the changes I've experienced. This has been a really bad year for me on so many levels. And, I would say that I thoroughly envy the introverts who found this past time calming, normal, or unambiguously a positive development; and I envy everyone who was able to build up their home life even more.

In brief: for me, if this year were a Tarot card, it would definitely be The Tower. Unambiguous and broad destruction of health, happiness, good habits, and serenity.

With that said, I was able to do a few things despite the tumultuous year. I think my character has mellowed out. I finally learned to ask for help and am climbing off the moodswingmobile. I made decisions about my attitude to certain interpersonal/familial problems that will likely have a lifelong impact for me and at the very least my parents, about which I'm contented. I'm in the early stages of a new career that I don't mind and occasionally enjoy, and I've especially become better at worrying less about what others think, and about making mistakes.


I think that the greatest growth this year is how much better I am at making steady progress towards a goal and investing in myself, and letting go of what isn't working. But I wonder how much of this would have happened in a normal year, as a simple result of starting graduate school in my early 30s.

[Caz]

you talk too much

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Honestly each and every time I try to improve my life the very universe resists.

Quarantine was the happiest I'll ever be as evidently autism stops being an outright disability when you remove most everyone from life.  But obviously that cannot last forever.

This is relatable, but in my case its ADHD (among other things).