{"id":210,"date":"2019-01-02T16:56:34","date_gmt":"2019-01-02T20:56:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.matthewhuynh.com\/?p=210"},"modified":"2019-01-02T16:59:27","modified_gmt":"2019-01-02T20:59:27","slug":"2018-an-accomplished-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.matthewhuynh.com\/index.php\/2019\/01\/02\/2018-an-accomplished-year\/","title":{"rendered":"2018 &#8211; an accomplished year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p> I&#8217;m a task-oriented person. I need to set goals so I always know what I&#8217;m working towards. I accomplished a lot of my resolutions for 2018. Here are some that I knocked out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Get coding-oriented job in Seattle.<\/li><li>Wedding in Boston.<\/li><li>Read a book a month.<\/li><li>Max out 401k and ESPP.<\/li><li>Switch to a credit union.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>I will admit I did some extra work in the last month of December to achieve some of these but man, does it feel good to hit your goals. I&#8217;ll share some of my goals for 2019:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Get hella fit before <a href=\"https:\/\/lasvegas.electricdaisycarnival.com\/\">EDC Las Vegas<\/a> in May. Current weight 168 pounds, target 155.<\/li><li>Read a book a month.<\/li><li>Bike or board to work everyday.<\/li><li>Do the Princeton Algorithms II online course.<\/li><li>Achieve <a href=\"https:\/\/dota2.gamepedia.com\/Matchmaking\/Seasonal_Rankings#Medals\">Divine rating<\/a> in DOTA 2.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Let&#8217;s reflect on lessons I&#8217;ve learned from books, people, and life in the past year:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>When purchasing a home that has a homeowners&#8217; association (HOA), be sure to read their bylaws<\/strong> as it may include a &#8220;rental cap&#8221; provision which limits the max percentage of renting homes. My townhome was renting out just fine, generating passive income for me &#8211; and then my HOA says I need to stop otherwise they&#8217;ll fine me $25\/day because I didn&#8217;t have their blessing. I emailed them back saying I&#8217;d be selling my property and leaving their neighborhood.<\/li><li><strong>When planning a wedding, don&#8217;t invite your ex&#8217;s<\/strong>. It&#8217;s just easier for everyone involved.<\/li><li><strong>If you&#8217;re going to make any big purchases like a car or a house or life insurance, do your research<\/strong>. Getting into the nitty gritty and reading fine print and whatnot can be boring &#8211; but think about it like this: you are potentially saving thousands over the years which is the same as you getting paid hundreds of dollars per hour of research.<\/li><li><strong>Don&#8217;t be afraid of change as it is the only constant in life.<\/strong> This adage applies to my emotional self. I was fearful of changing emotionally because I thought it may compromise my authenticity or my true personality. There&#8217;s a fine line to walk there but if you believe a change will make you a better person, you should probably fight through the discomfort and evolve. Living with my wife Fan has taught me so much in terms of being a respectful and caring person. There are so many bad habits I have to actively work out of my system, and instill new ones. For example, I am always starting my sentences with &#8220;you need to &#8230;&#8221; which conveys immediate judgment and requests compliance. Most people don&#8217;t like obeying orders nor will it help grow a non-professional relationship.<\/li><li><strong>Partying does get old.<\/strong> I knew this to be true but it&#8217;s surprising when it hits nonetheless. You turn 30 and your body is like, &#8220;fuck you and your goddamn binge drinking.&#8221; Combine an aging body with a stable marriage and quiet weekends seem like a great option. I&#8217;m not saying I don&#8217;t enjoy partying &#8211; but my frequency has gone down for sure.<\/li><li><strong>Taking in new information in long-form prose is essential.<\/strong> The world moves so fast. Memes are born and die every day on the internet. Groundbreaking science is published every week. Given such a deluge of data, it&#8217;s so important to your continued sanity and mental growth to be able to filter out the noise and spring for the proper nourishment. I&#8217;ve heard many describe it as watching what you consume media-wise like you watch your physical diet. That&#8217;s why I chose to do a book a month. The immediate benefit is honing your ability to focus. Then the other benefits like changing your viewpoints and habits, understanding how to argue a stance or ideology, expanding your vocabulary, etc will follow.<\/li><li><strong>Support your life partner by splitting work equally.<\/strong> This wisdom comes from Sheryl Sandberg; I highly recommend her &#8220;Lean In&#8221; book. Growing up in a &#8220;traditional&#8221; household, my mother did a lot of the housework. My dad was no slouch but my mom was on the hook for maintaining the house in addition to her full-time job. In retrospect, this is an unfair split. In recent years, my dad has taken up some work; he&#8217;ll clean up after my mom cooks. When parents split the housework and child care equally, there are numerous benefits such as increased marital satisfaction.<\/li><li><strong>It is okay to ask for advice when making big decisions.<\/strong> In general, it&#8217;s tough for me personally to ask for advice because you&#8217;re showing vulnerability. Contrary to popular belief, this act doesn&#8217;t make you seem weak. People will come to your aid when you request it. The most recent example is whether I sell my townhome using seller\/owner financing or not. I was ready to sign the contract with a buyer when my parents advised me against it, and that I should consult with my siblings. I begrudgingly obliged, and that saved me so much headache because I didn&#8217;t realize what a big risk I would be undertaking. I ended up backing out of the contract. <em>The short summary is that I don&#8217;t have enough equity in the townhouse so if my mortgage company exercised their due-on-sale clause, I would be financially destroyed.<\/em><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s all the stuff I got today. There&#8217;s some more stuff I could talk about such as existential dread, impostor syndrome, financial anxiety, money chasing, and marital frustrations but we&#8217;ll save those topics for their own posts. Maybe leave a comment on what you want to hear about?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m a task-oriented person. I need to set goals so I always know what I&#8217;m working towards. I accomplished a lot of my resolutions for 2018. Here are some that I knocked out: Get coding-oriented job in Seattle. Wedding in Boston. Read a book a month. Max out 401k and ESPP. Switch to a credit &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.matthewhuynh.com\/index.php\/2019\/01\/02\/2018-an-accomplished-year\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;2018 &#8211; an accomplished year&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ponderings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.matthewhuynh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.matthewhuynh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.matthewhuynh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.matthewhuynh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.matthewhuynh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.matthewhuynh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":214,"href":"https:\/\/blog.matthewhuynh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210\/revisions\/214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.matthewhuynh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.matthewhuynh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.matthewhuynh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}