Successes and Failures - 2024 Edition

Let sleep not come upon thy languid eyes
Before each daily action thou hast scann'd;
What's done amiss, what done, what left undone;
From first to last examine all, and then
Blame what is wrong, in what is right rejoice.

Epictetus, Discourses, Book 3

The Stoic philosopher Epictetus recommends that we end our days reflecting on what we have done well, what has gone amiss, and what we have left undone. “Blame what is wrong,” he says, and “in what is right rejoice.”

This is the final post of 2024 from Commonplace Philosophy, and so I think it is fitting that I spend some time talking about what has gone well and where I’ve failed. Since this is public-facing, I’ll be focusing public-facing successes and failures. Hopefully, this will help me do better in 2025.

Let’s begin with successes.

I saved my YouTube channel (from myself)

This might come as a bit of a surprise, but there was a period of time in 2024 when I was considering ending my channel. As I wrote in a post from a few months back:

I’d had some setbacks. I released a few videos that I didn’t really want to release, but I felt I should make them for the sake of keeping some kind of pace. I was repackaging old ideas; it was stale. The audience sensed it, too. Some of them told me it was disappointing. What the hell was I doing?

I had lost my sense of direction.

I had always wanted to make philosophical content on YouTube. Somehow, I’d found some early success talking about journaling, note-taking, and just recommending books — and I couldn’t figure out how all of this related to each other. I was afraid to pivot to more specifically philosophical content, but I also knew I needed to do that if I wanted to keep going. I was paralyzed.

But I took some risks, and they have mostly paid off. The channel is now doing better than it ever has been, and I’m in a very good place moving in 2024. Most importantly, I’m proud of what I’m making.

Let’s highlight my favorite videos from the year.

Stoicism: An In-Depth Explanation

There is no shortage of Stoic content online, and some of it is pretty good. What I found was lacking was a simple presentation of what the ancient Stoics believed. So, I read the primary sources (and some of the most important secondary sources) and made a 30 minute video about it.

It flopped — and then it didn’t. Now it is a comfortable success, people regularly write comments to thank me (as they’d been looking for something like this), and I know I’ve provided some kind of service.

Aristotle’s guide to the good life

A few months later, I tried my hand at explaining Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics in 30 minutes. I think that in almost every single way it is better than the Stoicism video. I’m better on camera; I let someone else handle the editing, since they could do it better than I would; the presentation is clearer (and more accurate). It’s a good video, and one that I think needed to be made.

Why we can’t focus

Presentation-wise, I think this is the best video I’ve ever made. It’s a tight script centered on some important ideas, Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death being the most relevant one. Based on comments I keep receiving, I’ve been calling these recent videos (including my most recent on burnout) my ‘David Foster Wallace era.’ It’s tech-pessimism that can’t help but end with some hope, however unfounded.

I focused on my health

If you look back on some older videos, especially after my son was born, you’ll see two things: I was gaining a lot of weight and I always looked tired. I’ve made significant improvements in both respects.

Back in 2021 or so, I started rock climbing – in particular I was bouldering at indoor gyms – and I loved it. I was obsessed. I hated rest days because I always wanted to be on the wall. I got quite a bit stronger fairly quickly, because bouldering is full-body workout.

Then, after adopting a son, some of my climbing friends moved to Denver to be closer to family. Shortly after, my wife fell pregnant. She had to stop climbing, and I stopped because I didn’t love going by myself.

When you’re climbing 3-5 times per week, you eat a lot of food just to recover and have energy. When you suddenly stop, you still want to eat a lot of food. I gained a lot of weight. I wasn’t weighing myself often, but I know that I was well over 200 pounds at one point. I made some lifestyle changes and lost a bit of that, but I was still about 25-30 pounds heavier than I’d been when I was climbing all the time (and I was a fair bit weaker).

After getting laid off, I decided to really change things. I lost a lot of weight, and (more importantly) I feel good in my body. Going into 2025, I want to intentionally gain some weight by starting resistance training again.

I also decided to get better about sleep. I bought an alarm clock and put my phone in the kitchen at night. I tried to keep a good routine. Now, absent some exceptions, I’m going to bed at a reasonable hour, waking up quite early, and spending a few hours in the morning reading before anyone else in my house wakes up. (Except for my loyal dog, who gets up at 4:30AM with me and sits at my feet while I read.)

I survived a layoff — and thrived

As readers of this newsletter know, I was laid off from my job at Indeed back in May. I had just bought a house, which was perhaps not the best timing. If you want to read about it, I wrote this essay shortly after:

I didn’t just survive this layoff; I am in fact thriving personally and professionally. I now see just how much I hated the corporate tech world, how much I needed to escape from it, and how much of myself I was losing by staying.

Of course, I wouldn’t have thrived without all of the readers of Commonplace Philosophy, many of whom decided to become paying subscribers in the aftermath of the layoff. For that, I must express my gratitude.

This meant that I had more time to write, and I produced some quality pieces. Here are some favorites:

Now, let’s turn to some failures.