year-end diagnostics

Apparently my more recent posts "bespeak a reasonably okay person", which I was happy to hear. I hadn't really noticed a big change myself, though, so today I read through my archives and made some pretty graphs to see if I could see a difference less subjectively. I just realised this graph would very much displease my year 8/9 science teacher, since I forgot to label the axes and it has no title... I went through and scored each post between -2 and +2 for how happy I seemed or remembered being. The points on the graph are monthly averages. It actually goes back to the start of my blog in 2005.

I could label some events that may have influenced my mood, but I have no real explanation for the big trough between March and August this year, or for the rapid improvement after that. I guess the lack of signposting events might explain why I didn't notice a change, even though it was obvious in hindsight. I think the smaller slump in November is due to the fact that I actually kind of started trying to be more productive again, instead of just continuing to slack off and enjoying not feeling quite so miserable all the time. The post-happy-pills-and-haircut half of November actually had a higher average than any other month, but the first half of the month dragged it down. I was thinking of including data from my posts to the goals group Shrinky set up, because I haven't mentioned my recent (small, but significant) improvements in productivity over here. I think this is a pretty good illustration of my year, though.
Looking back, I could see how depressed I actually was and I felt bad for beating myself up about just being lazy all the time. Of course, I'm doing the same thing now, but that's different, because I don't actually feel miserable, so I have no excuse...

In my archives I also discovered this test, so I took it again. I got slightly improved scores this year, except in friends/family for some reason. I'm not sure what I would've answered differently last year.

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	6.3
Mind:	6.7
Body:	7
Spirit:	7
Friends/Family:	2.4
Love:	0.8
Finance:	7.1
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

I retook the happiness test here, too, but I didn't get an improved score the first time. I redid it and picked answers that were as happy as possible, while still being true, rather than being more conservative. The second time I did get a slight improvement, up to 2.5 out of 5 (from 2.13 in April and 2.33 in July), but that's still not very happy.

I'm feeling more capable of making changes at the moment, so maybe I'll try to think of some specific things I could work on to be happier. This might just be another temporary New Year's boost, but I hope not. I might as well try to make the most of it while I can, anyway.