Since my last Lessons post, I’ve learnt about myself and life, through events, anxieties, and positive situations too. Since I like to look back on things and discover the lessons from events I can see the “silver lining in the clouds” and often come away from the experience at least more prepared for the future. And with positive discoveries like my observation of day trips being nice, I can try to arrange more of that to improve my life.

So, following is an unsorted list of the things I’ve life lessons I’ve discovered over the past year and (just over) a half. I will elaborate on a select few after the list.

• Vitamin D deficiency causes depression and misery.
• Action things straight away instead of putting them off for later. If it’s important or it could have negative consequences if not done, you should do it now!
• Have a purpose in life. Or try to find something creative outlet at least.
• Don’t try to do much while on vacation. Catch up with only one person or group per part of the day.
• Journal about your worries and the facts to help prevent your brain going rampant
• Walks really do help your mind. Some of my best weekend mornings have been just walking along the lake with a coffee or bubble tea and relaxing.
• Little day trips somewhere new are nice.
• When doing maintenance (system, codebase) or a tidy up around the house, take photos or records of before and after. You have evidence and a comparison for reference.
• Eat something before taking long train journeys around dinner time.
• Physical crafts or physical puzzles are relaxing and makes you feel human.

Stories and Closing Thoughts

Back in the height of winter last year, I was getting fatigued and rather depressed. I was ruminating a lot and my self-esteem was lower too. Eventually I had my blood tested and my vitamin D was in between the Deficient and Severely Deficient measurements. That would certainly explain a lot of the feelings I was experiencing. I started to take vitamin D supplements and my mood slowly got better. This year I’ve been trying to keep up the supplements through the winter and I’m a lot better.

On a recent vacation, I tried to organise catch-ups with at least 3 sets of people after already exhausting myself with an early rise and physical activity. I ended up cancelling most of the rest of the plans due to overwhelm and logistics. So I may have offended or upset those who I cancelled on.

A few times I’ve gone on little day trips or afternoon trips and found the drive a nice mindful experience and the activities fun or relaxing. I can even look back on day trips I took while depressed from lack of vitamin D as good times now. And some times we found cool things to purchase or that people were giving away that we’d not have otherwise.

Once last year my town was having an art festival with a free workshop on making “Zines” - sheets of paper folded into a little booklet that you can write in and decorate and give away. It was really fun to sit with others and puts stickers and draw into a little booklet. And recently I bought an acrylic jigsaw puzzle that was a delight to put together on the weekend. In both cases doing something physical with my hands to make some craft or some art felt quite wholesome and fulfilling.

In closing, while some of these life-lessons have been painful and depressing or worrisome, they’ve all turned out OK I as far as I know (not that I’d necessarily talk about it otherwise…) and I can come away with some valuable experiences that might save me from worse outcomes in the future. In writing these blogs, I hope that my experiences can save you from similar experiences too!