My 2017: Awesomeness and more grey hairs, yessss!

An entry into @anomadsoul's 'My 2017' contest, 'Achievements and failures'.

I'm another year older and wiser. The changes I made in 2015 were totally worth it.

This entry has to start prior to January this year because plenty of what's happened over the past 12 months has been years in the making.

In early 2015, I suffered a mental breakdown. Sparing the details, my emotional and mental health was so bad, it started to affect me physically too - shaking and fainting were not something I'd ever have to deal with, and this was the push I needed to seek some help.

After months off work, counselling, and plenty of time to think about what I needed to do to help myself, I made the decision to quit my 'job for life' and go seek the sunshine outside of the UK.

Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD, as it's appropriately abbreviated to, had hit me harder year on year for the previous 3/4 years, and having tried the SAD lamps (fake sunshine) and Pills, enough was enough. I bought a small shop with a friend in 2015 on the island of Mallorca, Spain - I'd found the sunshine I needed to power me through the colder months.

Although that didn't last, moving to Valencia (Spain) in September 2016 ensured the sun stayed shining on me. My mental health was a million times improved, and I was ready to give 2017 what for!

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The first weekend of 2017 began in Barcelona, unorignially posing for photos in front of Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, which should be finished just in time for the 'My 2047' yearly review.

_{Wow look how tall that Crane is!}

Another city ticked off the list. 'Cheers' to the taxi driver who was being negative towards the French, 'there's too many here', on our way to the airport - @osm0sis has a Canadian/English accent, so I had to point out at the end of the trip that she is indeed French. I don't think she was wearing a 'echarpe' so you could forgive his confusion :)

The year also began with my 4th (count em!) month working behind a desk again after vowing to never be office bound again. The lure of the decent salary, and a chance to say 'I've worked for the United Nations' was enough to bend my arm for another attempt at workin' 9 to 5, without wanting to slit my wrists come 9:30, a.m.

I consider anyone doing the 9-5 grind to be achieving greatly each time they make it home without ending it all on the way. One method of negating this 'risk' is to wear a helmet and a ventilation mask during your commute:

_{More like finish me, or 'me finished' after 120 kms Monday - Friday!}

The U.N. base is next to the airport at a classified location and was 13 km from my home. I managed to safely navigate over 2000 km this year on my bicycle, in temperatures ranging from 2c (35f) to a rather sweaty 39 (102f). At the end of the summer my legs were solid and I had a sweet backpack tan going on :)

Working at the United Nations for a whole year was definitely a win for me - I proved to myself that, if needed, I could still do an IT job well enough not to be fired, and sit still for 40 hours a week without wanting to end it all with paper cuts.

_{Adios Donald!}

Living on mainland Spain, and a Spanish Island for almost 2 years now, you would have thought 'hablo bien español' PERO NO!, I flipping suck! To be fair, the U.N. job was English speaking, but that didn't stop my colleagues talking to me in Spanish, and the laughing at me 'porque no entiendo', f^%$ers! A greater knowledge of the Spanish language is though, something I should really have by now and I'm chalking that one down as a 'miss' of 2017.

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In the past, but not so much in recent years, I used to play a fair amount of Table-Tennis and Pool, and so having a partner in @osm0sis who also enjoys these activities has been a big bonus. We visited these places a lot this past year, argued loads (yeah we both hate losing) but fortunately, I have a moment to share with you today. Me showing off, and being called a 'dick' for it, ha!

_{Watch the eyes not the red ball}

It's probably a good time to mention my main driving force, and literally my driver most of the time too.

Here she is with her favorite thing, Wine.

Hi @osm0sis!

The 'win' is hanging onto her despite disappearing into the STEEM Blockchain for hours on end and using photos that haven't been vetted for approval - like the one above!!

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Destinations visited this year included Tenerife, France, and more recently, Lisbon in Portugal for Steemfest 2. I feel like I didn't make the most of the trip to Portugal as sickness shafted the last few days, but I did learn a lot and met some very nice people, including the contest host @anomadsoul. Two highlights were one, beating @exyle at pool (although he was probably too wasted to care!), and two, listening to the @dollarvigilante talk about Steemit with a pair of boobs on the screen behind him :)

The video below starts from when the audience sees boob - Unfortunately for you guys, they are not visible on the recording, but the reaction and comment from Jeff is pretty amusing! - 4:30 - the direct time link doesn't work!

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The Steemfest budget to cover both of us was pretty sizable and so honestly, with not being well for half the event, I have to put this down as 'not making the most of it', although it was impossible to connect with everyone I could have done better here. That being said, I'm happy to have been part of the event and met the people I did, these short encounters may well end up being more worthwhile than I previously thought. And plus, Lisbon is pretty cool, despite all the crazy hills!

Coming back to Steemit in early 2017 is what I'm putting down as my final 'win' for this year. I joined in August 2016, wrote a long post about depression, got 2 views and then got a job in Valencia, completely forgetting about this world until around April. Numbers were starting to pick up, along with the price from 7 cents a Steem, and with much more effort on my part, I've learned a lot, produced much more content, not p1ssed too many people off yet, and can see that the STEEM Blockchain is going to be a force to be reckoned with in 2018 and beyond.

Recent SBD spikes have allowed me (and I hope you guys too), to cover any Christmas expenses without the need to Power Down, so that's just brilliant stuff - and honestly, I think the best is yet to come for our community. What a great time to be involved, and an awesome end to 2017!

Thank you very much for reading, and thanks @anomadsoul for 'forcing' me into doing a bit of reflection over this year. This sort of thing is actually a good exercise, and i'm thinking 'well that was a pretty good year, what's the next gonna be like!?'

Cheers!

Asher @abh12345