Who Do You Want To Be Now? – 2024 In Review

I made some of my biggest life decisions this year, but every decision had one question in common – who do you want to be now? I’m choosing my future and the man I want to be. Here’s my 2024 in review.

Well we’re here again. Another year heading towards its end which means it’s time to be Super Reflective! In between all the meme posting about just how crazy it is to think the calendar is about to have a year ending in a 5 again already, it’s a good time to have a look back on everything that happened and where we go from here.

If you’ve been following Walking The Shoreline you may be aware the “In Review” has been a yearly tradition since 2014 on the site, and it’s my invitation to you to do some reflection on your own year. Maybe you’re struggling to even frame your thoughts about the year. Maybe you went through some things you didn’t tell anyone or the right people about. Maybe you just want to reminisce with someone else. Whatever the case may be, I hope this serves you well as we look at 2024 together.

The everyone stuff

It was a crazy worldwide year for all of everyone, full of huge world events, entertainment and things that affected everyone. For instance, it was a big voting year – my state got a new Premier, Moldova got a new president, Georgia voted a certain way, Russia had a presidential “election”, South Africa had elections, Trump got re-elected (which is still crazy to me), and over 30 other countries had voting of some kind. The iPhone 16, Samsung S24, and Pixel 9 all came out this year. There was Hurricane Milton followed immediately by Hurricane Helene that devastated south-eastern USA and Mexico, and Spain had heaps of floods.

The great James Earl Jones passed away, as did Quincy Jones and the young Liam Payne. Moana, Inside Out, Gladiator and Despicible Me all got sequels. We got a new Star Wars show in The Acolyte which I actually thought was really great, although I think I was the only one. There was some epic new TV as well such as the zaney Interior Chinatown, the mega cute Nobody Wants This (which I absolutely need to write a review for as I thoroughly enjoyed it and its observations on love), and Mike Schur’s next masterpiece in The Man On The Inside which I still haven’t watched yet.

The war in Ukraine entered its third year with Ukraine actually successfully invading Russia back in an attempt to prevent civilian cities being hit with artillery shells and non-nuclear enormous bombs every day, Assad in Syria was overthrown in a matter of weeks (and they’re still finding all his sex slaves and bodies he melted with acid even now), China and Taiwan continued their will they won’t they, and a lot of central African countries had military coups.

The me stuff

Zooming into my little life, this year started kind of crazy with a cherrypicker above our house clearing out some huge branches that had snapped in half and had been precariously dangling over our fence, yard, and part of our roof for a week or so after a psycho storm last Christmas Eve. I left to go start my new contract for work (I’m a software consultant and my previous one expired end of last year) and all the neighbours were out in force to watch this 20-30 metre lift go all the way up to clear these huge branches away safely.

My new contract was literally across the road from my old one so I went into the old office to drop off my old gear and work laptop, grab my work things, and walked by little feet across the road to the new building with my stuff in tow. From humble beginnings, the crazy year would begin.

Actually in addition to the new contract, I got a lot of new things this year – new tablet, new laptop, new phone who dis, a new watch and then another new watch when it stopped working under warranty (yay free upgrade), new bedframe, new mattress, and a bunch of new games. For my nerd friends, some of the great ones were Tiny Rogues, Horizon Forbidden West (gooooooooooood golly this is an 11 out of 10), the Zero Dawn remaster, Ghost of Tsushima (another gooooood golly), Radical Red, Final Fantasy 16 (with the craziest boss fights ever), Tekken 8, Crab Champions and a bunch more. I think in the new year I’ll be revisiting my top 10 games list as there’s been a lot of releases since I last revisited it.

We had a bunch of good trips away this year too with the kids getting older. Another excellent time out in one of the mountain towns called Toowoomba which we absolutely love, and an epic weekend up at Mooloolaba (beach) for our anniversary. Some day trips out to Montville, into the city a bunch of times made even better when bus fares changed to 50 cents halfway during the year, and almost every weekend otherwise out at some park, indoor playground, kids birthday, wedding, friends dinner or adventure around the beautiful part of the world we live in.

In the spirit of the side hustle I did a big deepdive into the world of day and swing trading on the stock market with some play money indepedent of our investments and property. Results may vary but I did see quite a bit of success and learned a whole lot about technical analysis and company indicators, more than I have in previous years when I’ve tried it, with way more success than I’ve seen in previous years. Would only recommend it if you have the time to learn (in dozens of hours minimum) and the money to lose while you learn it. And the patience when you invest in some bad companies and your money is stuck there til the price comes back because their interday price change bypassed your stop losses and it’s too big a hit to take. And the willingness to change brokers when you realise some of the ones that say they’re cheap are not. After trying about 11 different brokers I would recommend Saxo Bank for feature set and price.

Walking The Shoreline had another great year of readership from all around the world. But hopefully it was all still good content or at least that’s what I heard from a lot of readers that things really resonated with them or helped them through a difficult time in their relationships or emotions. Actually looking back I wrote less of the “fun” ones this year like game or movie or show reviews and more of the heavy life stuff ones, like Sex, Breakups and Childlessness: Normalising Challenging Topics, If You Died Early, What Would Your Kids Remember?, and The Importance of Reciprocity: Men Need To Feel Pursued Too. All important good stuff, but I promise a few more fun ones in the new year too in between the heavy reading. Definitely the Nobody Wants This review and a revisit of the top 10 games will be in the early new year.

And hey, after over 10 years I finally gave the site a theme change, upgrade and uplift. Hopefully you’re enjoying the darker poppier and orange colour scheme over the lighter, very green old site, and that the navigation is a lot easier. Featured Posts is always a good place if you’re looking to go exploring for thought provoking or even just silly fun content.

At the start of the year my eldest asked to come to church whenever I was at church, and so I chose to rejig my Sunday night leadership responsibilities accordingly and just take a “normal role” in order to be more reliable for both the child and the church. And I’m so glad I did because the memories and learning that happened as a result have been some of my proudest memories in my life.

It’s really a question of who do you want to be now when your child asks something like that. Interesting question.

We continue to serve as a family in running a life group, which is a group of people who regularly meet together to talk life, faith, and have a good time. I got to be a best man at a wedding for some people who met in our group this year, and we got to celebrate a lot of other great wins and go through some of the heavier times in people’s lives together as we always do. There are a lot of people who don’t believe in God and that’s your perogative (more on that in 6 Reasons Atheism Still Makes No Sense To Me), but I know for me in my life I continually see miracles, help, support and strength that goes beyond natural limits on a weekly basis in my life and in the lives of the people we do life with. So grateful for these people and for many more.

There’s been a lot of celebrate this year, but this year also featured some incredibly challenging decisions and times to navigate, so let’s zoom in further.

The bigger stuff

We have two really great kids. Absolutely delightful beams of light… most of the time. You know how it is. And this year we had one child ending their tenure as a toddler while the other entered into it. And that’s a pretty stressful combination as you may be aware in your own life or in the life of other parents.

Couple that with some ongoing recurring health challenges, working in a stressful industry (with an 83% burnout rate) and an Australian economy that keeps putting more and more pressure on people, we had a few times in married life that were very high pressure. Usually 3am with both kids sick and screaming while we were both sick as well is the combination that caused the most grief resulting in a lot of words that shouldn’t have been said, or should have been said much better.

There are so many great relationship resources that are out there and that you will have seen on Walking The Shoreline over the years, and the real test of practice vs theory comes when the pressure is up and the stakes are high. I’m grateful to my wife for us getting through some of those high pressure situations together and still in happiness, as well as to a great network of supportive people who can see and say things that you can’t.

For me in particular I can remember one particularly challenging day one of our mentors called me to check in and listened to me for an hour, and then with about 3 hours notice let me drive to his family home, have his evening plans completely change, and for him to listen and talk a bunch of things out and offering some great advice that made a big difference. One of my favourite pieces of marriage advice has been “Stay amazed”, and on that night I gained another short statement of similar calibre – “Not who’s right? but what’s right?”. When two people abdicate on individual things and carry that attitude, the team wins. Simple, effective, easily remembered, and easily actioned.

Also beyond the general advice was the help of specific advice on certain decisions, background factors and cultural differences that a book or teaching series can’t usually hone in on in a specific enough way like a trusted wise person in your life can. He brought clarity to a few conversation points that had become chaotic not because he knew relationships but because he knew both of us, and gave us some handles to bring things where they needed to be.

Another element is that people change. I change, she changes, and what used to be true and great might not be true and great and helpful anymore for the current season. So what used to be the way you implemented some solid, servant hearted marital wisdom now needs to change, or be worded differently, or to take a different form. All in all, some of the lows were lower, but the highs were also definitely higher. That’s the dance of two becoming one.

So I guess in married life – who do you want to be now? Hmm.

Probably the largest challenge of the year came with a huge decision I needed to make in saying goodbye to a certain group of people. The short version is that a series of diagnosed but inconsistently treated mental health problems amongst this group became unsustainable to myself, my wife, and the most horrifying thing for me this year, for my kids, to continue to be around.

As you may know, I’m a huge believer in reconciliation and restoration. I believe that is always the primary goal of relationship, especially with people close to you. However I have come to see that there are some times where this is not possible, and the healthier thing is to walk away, especially when people are unwilling to change dangerous and repeatedly destructive behaviour, or get the help they need.

Forgiveness, yes, but enabling abuse, no. I’ve written about this sort of cycle which can manifest itself in many different types of relationships from marriages to friends to families to organisations in How a Warped View of Forgiveness Enables Abuse and Destroys Lives.

After being explicitly told our kids would not be celebrated after having a repeated pattern of similar behaviour towards them following the birth of both of my children including ghosting without contact on agreed meetings, angry outbursts, constant complaining about our wedding, kids births, baby showers, adult birthdays, kids birthdays, kids anything, and every single event that had ever taken place between us, I had to make a choice – this group of adults who knows better and refuses to get the help they need to change and re-enter healthy community with other people, or my wife, my children, and myself. We tried mediation a few times – it was finally time to do something necessary but drastic.

And too many times I’ve hidden the full extent of how bad things have been with this group to cover for them, unfortunately at great personal cost in my own life. But I will not pay with the emotional wellbeing of my children. When a child says “Is it hard to see me?” and the response is “Ah well they won’t remember that”, you instantly need to lose access to the precious heart being dismissed.

I needed to be honest with how many years, decades really, but especially all the years my children have been alive, that have been tainted by a dark cloud of an inability or unwilligness to celebrate their lives. A season of life that should be the happiest time with a constant litany of reasons to be unhappy or unavailable at the expense of the joy in front of all of us, and also of people who are actually wonderfully loving and supportive being unknowingly ostracised by this group because of something small or petty.

When joy arrives, when happiness is present, it seems that it can be just as confronting or upsetting to some people as something that is truly terrible. There’s a random line from a game called Tales of Berseria that I’m reminded of sometimes in that “people can fight against pain, but they can’t fight against happiness”. That sometimes more disarming and challenging to some is not sorrow, but joy.

I share this with you because a lot of people have experienced similar things and maybe it’s time to shine a light on reality instead of always making excuses for people who are doing the wrong thing. That people who spend years pushing others away eventually end up with no one else left can’t blame others when the most patient ones also have to give up for their own wellbeing.

It was a necessary decision, but heavy one, to say goodbye this year. However, after you survived reading that Debbie Downer of a summary, I am happy to report that it resulted in immediately obvious results of health and peace in myself and in our family. No asterixes hanging over birthdays or dedications, no list of 30 people who have been ex-communicated this week because of a random stare or slightly short sentence, and an environment where young children can grow with the mindset that they are worth celebrating, and that is a joy and a privelege, not a chore or a reason for sorrow.

Because children are worth celebrating.

Something we all have a job to ensure is that children grow up as long as possible believing in their value. The world and age will give them enough reasons to question it, and we have to give them every reason that when the question comes, they dismiss it rather than agreeing with a lack of worth.

I would be remiss to say as well that outside of this group, we are absolutely unabashedly surrounded by love, support, friendship, and also mutual opportunity to invest and reciprocate of ourselves into others. Relationships that are one way streets eventually go bankrupt (wrote more about that in You Missed The Main Point Of The Five Love Languages) but fortunately there is great wealth all around us and we hope the people in our lives feel the same way about our contribution to them.

And I’ve got to say, my kids are amazing human beings. My wife too. I have been filled with such joy and pride as they have made great decisions, learned a lot, interacted with others, and looked at the world with child-like awe reminding me every day of the need and the deligh in doing the same. There are so many highlights and wonderful moments that I am so grateful for.

And so, in dealing with my big decision, I went and got a few months of counselling again this year to help support me and fill me with the strength I needed to make and maintain that decision. Counselling is something I’ve done multiple times throughout my life, and something that is always quite useful. More of my own mental health journey in 6 Things That Helped Me Get Through Depression And Anxiety

And in my counselling, in my journey with God, in what I kept hearing at the time, there was such strong alignment around a key question that reinforced the theme and the drive of the year 2024.

Have you already heard the recurring question?

Who do you want to be now?

My counsellor after hearing my experiences said that acceptance and commitment therapy or ACT would be a good fit for working out if or how I should move forward with my big decisions. It’s a really great holistic framework that I hadn’t encountered before and one of its paradigms centres around what’s called choice points.

At every major or even minor decision in life, we have a choice – we’re either going to make a choice away from who we want to be, or towards who we want to be. This absolutely resonated with me from the very first session, because this was a central feeling I’d had around the decision to say goodbye, but also every other important area of my life this year.

The day before this conversation, one of our pastors at church was presenting exactly the same idea – that we can be ruled by insecurity or other people pulling our levers to try to make us who they want us to be, rather than us making decisions that lead us towards who we want to be.

I turned 36 this year. 40 is calling. My kids are growing. My career is at a certain point. Life happens. The economy happens. The decisions of others happen.

But this year was really a year of regular confrontation with this question – who do you want to be now?

I usually have to be home by 8 or a bit afterwards at the latest now – my time availability for how I catch up with others has changed.

I’m getting older. I have less physical energy than I used to, a fact that regularly frustrates me when I used to be able to go to three or four parties or catchups on a Saturday and be up at 7 the next day ready to go all day til 9 or 10pm, and then up and at it for a big week of work. I have less emotional energy too, which means my threshold is lower and my limits are also – a fact I’ve had to get used to.

The people I do life with are in different life seasons, and almost all of them are in a similar season of having less time and less flexibility than they used to.

So, with all that in mind – who do you want to be now?

I know I’m called to my big 4 – to help people with relationships, to address Western poverty, to help keep strong people strong and build leaders, and to help people find their purpose in life. I know I need to be a good husband and a consistent father. I know I want to keep as many people in our lives as possible and invest in others as much as I can. All without causing any area dramatic compromise.

And the good news is – you can. And I feel like I learned how for this new season of life. Less, but more quality time with people. Less fluff in conversation and more straight lines. Less waffle and greater purpose. Less activity and more meaningful rest. Not skipping any major event or celebration we’re invited to without good reason, because those few short hours make a huge difference to connectivity, community, and relationship health.

One of the greatest pieces of advice I got as an early parent as well is – hey, take the kids with you. As Dr Justin Coulson writes, too many people make their whole lives about their kids, when really you can bring your kids along with you for the life you have so they in turn have something meaningful to attach themselves to.

Parenthood doesn’t have to be the death of your calling, your relationships, your connections to others. You don’t have to fall into an introcentric bubble and disappear for 12 or more years til the kids are old enough that they aren’t spending that much time with you any more and you end up lost for connection and meaning in your life.

You can have both, to the betterment of both. By staying connected and investing in others, our kids learn how to do the same, and have made a lot of meaningful connections themselves even in their early years. I want to choose to be the father who shows them the path to life and helps them walk through it with joy.

I want to be that husband to my wife as well – even as years change, pressures grow, we get older, whatever happens – to be loving and present and helpful and make her better, not worse. I’m choosing that man.

I’m choosing protection for my family and keeping them safe from unhealthy and unrepentant attitudes, even if I will be the eternal villain so someone can try to sleep at night.

I’m choosing to continue my life in a forward direction even if others may want me to stay stuck in negativity or despair.

I’m choosing not to allow someone to make me feel bad for making the lives of others better as I was born to do.

I’m choosing joy and celebration for the people around me.

I’m choosing to keep trying to help support people through hard times as much as I can.

That’s who I want to be now.

I’m choosing the man I was born to be. The one who was made on purpose and for purpose, set apart, chosen for the tasks that only I can perform, to perform the role that only Matt Clark can perform, in my nerdy, Australian, contemplative, introverted, loud, and bouncy way.

I choose to be my true self, even as life changes.

How about you? Who do you want to be now? I know you who wanted to be before. I know things happened this year, or last year, or even every year. I know you wanted things to look different. But they don’t. And that doesn’t have to mean the end of that person.

John Maxwell and Henry Blackaby observe of the life of Joseph the son of Jacob that he chose to be God’s leader everywhere he went. He knew at a young age who he was called to be – he had dreams of people bowing to him and following his direction. And he got betrayed by his family who was supposed to love and celebrate him, and sold into slavery.

And he became the leader of the slaves.

Then he got falsely accused of rape by the wife of the man who he had success under for so many years and thrown in prison.

And he became the leader of the prisoners.

And so when he gets thrown into the house of Pharaoh, guess what happens? He becomes the head of the country administratively.

Because in every season, no matter what happened to him, around him, or in him, he chose to be the leader he was born to be.

You and I have the same choice. When you start dating someone, get married, have kids. When you move city or country. When you change jobs or schedules or friendship groups. When there’s a pandemic or hurricane or flood. Whatever happens, in every season, as you get older – who do you want to be now?

Because you can still choose to be that person.

---

2024 is winding down. The horizon of 2025 will soon rise, and the new year will bring all its uncertainty and challenges of its own. I hope I’ve encouraged you or given you something to help you look at your own year and your own life, and to think about the direction you’re going – away, or towards, the person you want to be.

And I know I got pretty heavy in the middle, because the reality is the weight of certain things was extremely heavy. But life is good. It’s up and up, we’re having a good time, and I can’t wait to continue to see all that’s ahead for us.

May we all discover the true brilliance of the person we’ve been made and called to be, and find the strength to embrace that person at whatever necessary cost to be them.

How about you? How was your 2024? Who do you want to be now?