Looking back at 2016

When I look back at 2016 at a personal level, I am truly thankful for everything I have and what I have been able to do. Sure, I fell short of almost every goal I set forth for myself earlier this year but in terms of the big picture, I as well as my family are truly better off.

We were able to take our first true family vacation in the form of a road trip to Montana and back through Wyoming and South Dakota where we made what are hopefully countless memories for our two kids. To make that a safer trip, we bought our first brand new vehicle a few weeks before leaving for the mountains of the west. Six months later it still has hints of that much-talked-about new car smell.

We also celebrated the missus beginning a new job. Still in a management role, she was able to find a job which sparked her interests without having to take a hit in the wage department. After a staggering 12 years as a restaurant manager with a stellar track record she moved on to become production manager at an up and coming  company in the same town she has worked for the majority of her career.

The boy began his educational journey ass he began preschool in September. Barely three years old, we rolled the dice and outside of a couple hiccups in the first few days of school, he is doing surprisingly well. He knows the names of almost everyone in his class and claims those that he knows as his friends. Not bad for a kid who h as never spent a day in a traditional daycare.

The girl began second grade this year and after a few notes from the teacher regarding her need to be constantly talking, she is hitting her stride. She is reading basically a full grade level above her classmates and is billed as the top reader in her class. She is also kicking ass in the area of spelling – even without really practicing spelling any of the words the is tested on.

All told, 2016 has been pretty damn good to us even though my onion crop went to hell after being hailed on in May. I am just hoping that 2017 is even better. After all, that is the American dream...

So Donald Trump will be the next President of the United States

I'll be honest that I don't have a lot invested in the 2016 presidential election. I've learned as I've aged that to distance yourself a comfortable amount from politics will help to preserve your sanity and lower your blood pressure. To say that Americans had a choice in yesterday's election between two similar shit sandwiches is extreme but neither did much to excite me or to spark my emotions.

Hillary Clinton has spent her life – at least since the 1980s – in the public eye by way of being married to Bill Clinton. Beginning as Governor of Arkansas, then President of the United States and Hillary's foray into her own political career as United States Senator from New York and on to her role as Secretary of State for Barack Obama. She is the stereotypical career politician. She can promise change and progress until she's blue in the face but when you've spent your entire life focused on advancing your career, you tend to become distanced from those you claim to represent.

On the flip side in Donald Trump. He made a name for himself as a real estate tycoon and businessman who parlayed that into a relatively long career as a reality television host. The fact that throughout his campaign he claimed to represent the average Joe and Jane while the opposition dug up tales of shafting contractors and shirking employee rights screamed of the perfect example of the pot calling the kettle black.

Neither truly rose above mediocre in my eyes. Curious, as election day neared, I took some survey which supposedly would align your values with those of one of the presidential candidates. My closest choice was Jill Stein. That was the first time I had hear of Jill Stein. I'll be honest in saying that when the momentum behind Bernie Sanders was still strong, he seemed like the best choice if the goal was to have a president who truly understood the struggles and needs of the American populace.

The only problem was that the American media deemed him unworthy to face down Donald Trump. That's how the Democrats arrived at nominating Hillary Clinton as their candidate to face down Donald Trump. The only problem being that the length of time she had spent in public office, while it can definitely be viewed as valuable experience into how government functions, became her downfall. She was the establishment even though she was the first female presidential nominee in the history of the United States.

The fact that Americans, in general, are constantly fed up with politics and politicians was her undoing. It wasn't emails on a private server. It wasn't skyrocketing health insurance premiums. It was the views of half of the voting public that they had had enough of career politicians leading this country.

We can view Donald Trump as running an extremely nasty and negative campaign but, like nearly every political before him, he unearthed the dirty little secrets on his opponent which resonated with those who supported him and that message amplified organically.

If Donald Trump's time in office – whether it is four or eight years – is anything like his campaign, we are in for 48 or 96 months of turmoil and further divisiveness. However, if he leads like he spoke during his almost vanilla acceptance speech early this morning, he will be at least a middle-of-the-road president who can at least keep America on track and remaining as the most powerful country in the world.

Maybe I have mellowed, but one person does not change the course of history for better or worse. If you want to worry about something, let's realize the both the Senate and House of Representatives have a Republican majority. If there is an ultra-conservative agenda which looks to roll back the progress made in the 21st century, they'll have an extremely easy road in front of them even if Donald Trump ends up being a reasonable and decent leader. Trump may be the most powerful man in the world come January 2017 but the title of President is nothing more than a figurehead – the real power lies in congress.

Goals for 2016

Normally people pontificate on the upcoming year towards the end of the prior year. With everyone and their little dog, too, having already done that; I opted to wait a handful of week into the current year to set some goals for myself.

I feel like I spun my wheels for the most part in 2015. For better or worse I settled into a groove, or rut, depending on how you look at it. Things need to change this year.

After some unfortunate developments in 2015, I was thrust into a number of new roles within the company where I work. For 2016 I need to get better at those roles because those roles drive revenue and with a radically new ownership structure on the horizon, ever dollar will be scrutinized and that is something we are entirely unfamiliar with. What was previously a free-wheeling company with virtually no revenue expectations is now expected to be a money-making machine. Being responsible for approximately 15% of that revenue (if not more), I need to step things up.

Secondly, I need to be better about distancing myself from work. There will always be that need for taking care of problems minutes after they arise – that's the nature of a small 24/7 business. The key is knowing when to prioritize things. I have been careful in how I approached things, letting other know that I put work second but still being able to fix problems when they need to be fixed. I stay in my corner of the work world and let others fight their battles because I control my own destiny and people repeatedly state that they notice how much work I do and are impressed with how I exceed their expectations.

The third area is self-improvement. I am used to working my ass off. It comes from growing up on a farm where manual labor and long hours were the norm. I need to get back to that. I intend to step up to bat in the area of helping my parents who are no longer young. I also intend to pitch in whenever I can to help my in-laws whose health is beginning to fade. One would think that with eight children that there would always be help around when it is needed but that simply isn't the case. I enjoy helping them out and I look at it as returning the favor for them letting me have garden space at their farm.

The fourth area is my health in general. Item three will go a long way in improving my health but I also need to make smarter choices about what I eat and drink. Now don't go crazy thinking that I'm cutting out beer, wine or alcohol in general because I'm not. I actually consume those rather infrequently. I do need to completely eliminate soda from my diet and find ways to improve my overall fitness. Maybe that means more bike rides with my kids or running with them as they ride their bikes. Whatever the case, I intend to lose ten pounds this year and gain back the muscle tone which has become a bit soft in recent years.

Wait and see if I meet these goals in eleven months.