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PaperclipPerfector  9hr ago (text post)   265 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for January 21, 2026

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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New Year's resolutions check-in:

  • Posted my second blog post of the year on Monday (right down to the wire, it went up at 11 p.m.), about a particularly pernicious reaction to the Minneapolis shooting which seems to recur whenever a member of the opposing political tribe is killed or disgraced.
  • Went to the gym three times last week. Couldn't bring myself to go on Monday, so went yesterday afternoon instead. Can deadlift 1.73x my bodyweight for 6 reps, squat .88x for 10 reps and bench press .7x for 9 reps.
  • Have not consumed any alcohol, fast food, fizzy drinks or pornography since waking up on January 1st, although I have snacked between meals quite a bit.
  • Have completed five of 11 modules in the SQL course.
  • Have practised guitar for roughly one hour every day since January 1st.

How goes it, @thejdizzler?

What do you think of SQL so far? It's one of my favorite tools

It's pretty nifty, and my day job involves SQL-based databases so it's nice to get some direct experience with the tool itself.

If you want to push the boundaries of your knowledge, check out a tool like Codewars or HackerRank. They provide exotic problem sets that require creativity and performance considerations that'll make you very powerful.

Thanks for the suggestion!

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