Reflections on Moments

October 28, 2020

Preface

Over the past year …

I used the app I built called Moments to track notable memories of my life. And for me, "notable" means three general scenarios: (1) any time I do something interesting besides typical daily routines, (2) any time I go somewhere interesting outside the house, or (3) any time I hang out with people that I don't live with already (my roommates).

Regularly using Moments gives you a lot of information, but I wanted to see what valuable ideas would come from all this information. So I've taken time to analyze everything and draw some conclusions.

I have learned a lot of interesting facts about myself, my habits, and my life that give me insightful takeaways and nuggets of wisdom. Here are some of the facts and my respective conclusions I've made, broken down into the core categories of the Moments app.

Acknowledgment: There are two things worth noting with this information.

  1. The pandemic caused a lockdown and quarantine that caused significant changes in opportunities for typical social interactions.
  2. I was pretty diligent about using it and recording my moments, but there was one important month this year that I missed more than half of, which is super sad because it was a jam-packed month full of amazing memories.
  3. (Oh well. I think this information is still mostly accurate.)

People

Facts

  • Of the people I don't live with (roommates), I have some friends I have hung out with close to a hundred times, and some friends 40-60 times.
  • There are a lot of amazing people that I know are great friends but have only recorded hanging out with them less than 10-15 times.
  • I have around a dozen really close friends that I regularly hang out with, usually at least once a week or every other week.
  • Besides these dozen or so close friends, there are these other amazing people I consider good friends yet might only actually ever hang out with about once a month.
  • Besides roommates, I spend time with friends close to 50% of the year (which is basically every other day).
  • I see my roommates almost every day.

Takeaways

  • I'm extremely grateful and thankful for my friends. They fill my life with so much to cherish.
  • I spend a lot of time with my friends — half of my lifetime. They mean a lot to me.
  • I'm a bit of an extravert.
  • Roommates are important. Choose them wisely.

Places

Facts

  • My top place is my house (over 80 moments).
  • I have hosted/invited people to hang out at my house probably around 80 times.
  • The next top three places are all friends' houses (over 50 moments).
  • When spending time with friends, I spend about one quarter of the year at my house and another quarter of the year at friends' houses (once or twice a week or 5-6 times a month).
  • I spent more time at good friends' homes than at public spaces and places.
  • Besides homes, I probably spend perhaps about 20-25% of the year at public places, including parks, coffeeshops, and restaurants (roughly once a week, 4-5 times a month, 50-70 times a year).
  • Of the top 3 public places that I spent the most time at, there's a park (Camel's Back ~15 times), a coffee shop (Hyde Perk ~15 times), and a restaurant (Bombay Grill ~10 times).

Takeaways

Homes

  • My home is important. The vast majority of my lifetime is spent at home.
  • Homes in general are important. Most of the time I spend outside my home is usually only then spent at friends' homes.
  • I must enjoy homes and prefer to spend my time in houses rather than public spaces.
  • My friends are most important, and spending quality time with them is best done within our homes, hosting each other and sharing our homes.

Public Places

  • Parks are perfect for enjoying the sun and nice weather, playing games, and gathering people.
  • Coffeehouses are perfect for getting out of the house, spending money, and meeting up with friends when neither of you want to be in your home (or want to clean your home to host haha).
  • Restaurants are perfect for eating meals with friends, spending money, and not worrying about cooking and cleaning.

The Internet

(The internet is a weird thing that we consider a place that you go to and within which events and moments occur. So despite not being a physical location, I'm guessing this belongs listed under "Places" since it kind of qualifies as a "space". Or at least it should go right between Places and Activities.)

Fact: I hung out with friends around 30 times online either doing video calls or playing video games.

Takeaway: The internet is important for communication (chats, calls, and video) and playing games (bonding). Hence why I spend an insane amount of time using it.

Activities

Facts

My top activities besides were, in order:

  1. hanging out (over 150 times),
  2. dinner (close to 100 times),
  3. playing games (over 50 times),
  4. "talking" (AKA deep conversations: over 50 times),
  5. drinking (around 50 times),
  6. tutoring code (around 20 times),
  7. phone calls (good, long ones: around 20 times),
  8. lunch (around 20 times),
  9. hiking (around 20 times),
  10. playing music (live with others: around 15 times),
  11. and I guess I only watched about a dozen movies.

As for average time spent …

  • On average, I "hung out" with friends 3-4 times a week, 13-15 times a month, or 40-50% of the year.
  • On average, I had dinner with friends about 1-2 times a week, 8 times a month, or 100 times a year.
  • On average, I played games with friends roughly once a week, 4-5 times a month, or 60 times a year.

And since games were a big part of my time, here's a breakdown of games I played

  • For video games, there's:
    • Rainbow Six Siege (my friends love this game),
    • VR games (Half Life Alyx, Pistol Whip, Beat Saber),
    • Last of Us,
    • Totally Accurate Battle Simulator,
    • Borderlands (2, PreSequel, and 3),
    • Far Cry 5,
    • and N++ (the best party game).
  • For "sports", there's:
    • Spikeball,
    • VolleyTennis,
    • Basketball,
    • Soccer.
  • For card/board games, there's:
    • Avalon/Resistance,
    • Game of Things,
    • and Uno.

Takeaways

  • Hanging out with friends: By far the one noteworthy thing that I do besides the typical daily or weekly routine activities, like working, eating, and sleeping, is "hanging out" with friends. Half of my lifetime is spent with friends. (Or basically all of my time if you count roommates as well, who are definitely my friends.)
  • Dinner: The most common activity that I do when spending time with friends is eating dinner together. Dinner is an important bonding experience to share with friends, and it's generally always paired with great conversation.
  • Games: Playing games with friends is one of the best bonding experiences one could ask for and is the second most common activity that I do when spending time with friends (#1 is "dinner"). About half the time I spend with friends is spent playing games.
  • Talking: While talking is just something that happens all the time during virtually every other activity I do with friends, I often spend time doing solely just that with friends. Because this is something I did not do a great job recording accurately, it's hard to truly estimate how often this happens and how many times a year or month or week. But if I gave my best guess, I'd say I have those extra special, outstanding conversations about twice a week. Conversation is a big part of who I am, what I love, and how I love.
  • Altogether: The best evenings spent hanging out with friends involve all of these things: dinner, discussion, and games.

Big Conclusions

Overall, when looking at the most notable yet most common moments in my life, here's how I spend most of my time:

  • With friends
  • In a home (mine or a friends')
  • Hanging out
    • Eating dinner
    • Having conversations
    • Playing games

Friends. Homes. Dinners. Conversations. Games.

I might argue that these are some of the most important things in life.

And since I feel good about my life, maybe these are my ingredients to "the good life" (or at least "my good life").