This was the first year where I truly felt I began to maximize my potential as a human being, but that doesn't mean I was immune to anguish or being a total bonehead. If anything, I probably put myself in more of those situations than ever before.

This year, I regret playing Billy Idol's "Eyes Without a Face" six times in a row on a jukebox, even though it's one of the best songs ever. I regret writing that any band sounds like Ariel Pink, when it's just lazy shorthand for describing someone's music as "kinda weird." I regret not alerting anyone that Math the Band had to reschedule the show that I previewed in the paper. I regret that not every concert this year could be Jeff Mangum filling the Moore Theater with tears, Annie Clark crowd-surfing while the sun set on Coachella, or Frank Ocean captivating a sold-out Showbox at the Market with his sheepish charisma.

I regret the series of decisions that led me to eat bean-and-cheese burritos at Taco Time five days in a row, and by the last day, practically weeping when I heard Sinead O'Connor's "Nothing Compares 2 U" played over the loudspeaker. (But I don't regret liking that song, my slow lurch toward vegetarianism, or never having eaten at Taco Bell in my life.)

I regret any meal I share with a group of people where I see everyone looking down at their phones. I regret all the apoplexies I've had, and will continue to have, about the future of our (worst) generation (of all time) because of a goddamn New York Times, Salon, or Thought Catalog article about hipsters. I regret that I spent most of my life feeling timid and too afraid to speak up for myself. But many indignant conversations later, I regret more that this year I discovered I'm an irritable and insufferable asshole.