Ah, another year is gone.

The time has come to grab a rum ball and reflect on how your existence is contributing to the world. You find yourself confronted with a bit of travel time and you have nothing to do but take stock on how you frittered away a perfectly good year. It’s like when you judge the outfit choices of celebs on the red carpet, but you judge yourself. This is why the consumption of alcohol skyrockets in the holiday season.

So how am I doing? Well, let’s take a look at the facts.

Now, before I press on, I must remind you that I did this on Monday, when I was feeling rather tired and was sitting in a dark room facing a wardrobe with mirrored doors. Mirrored doors are fabulous until you find yourself faced with the reality of your existence and can’t escape your bland reflection, which is decidedly less Disney-like than you’d prefer.

So here are the results of my stocktaking:

Yesterday I went on a pub crawl wearing a Santa suit that looked like it was made from a blend of carpet underlay, stray dog hair and the whiskers of three backpackers who had to shave their adventure beards off to return to work after trekking through Nepal for four months. Imagine how that would smell, then add stale beer, sweat and sea water to that equation and you’ll have the musk of me on this particular outing.

I cracked the glass cover of my phone, wore a beard around my thigh and went swimming in the ocean wearing socks and sneakers.

The following day I had to listen to Disney songs in order to perk me up at work.

The last video on my phone is a recording of the beach with me screaming the lyrics to Total Eclipse of the Heart. I am alone in the video.

The last song I listened to on my phone featured Justin Bieber, but then I also found myself jogging to Slim Dusty’s classic beat Duncan the other day so I don’t know what I can deduce from my music choices. Maybe I’m eclectic, or maybe I just have terrible taste it depends on who you ask.

My dinner last night was a free sausage sizzle and a custard-filled doughnut, but today I had zucchini noodles with shaved turkey so I guess that’s what they call balance. The worst thing I ingested today way a Scotch finger. This could be interpreted in two ways. The first is that the worst thing I ate was a plain biscuit, I must be treating my body like a temple. On the other hand, you could argue that if the world’s plainest biscuit besides the milk arrowroot was my big treat I must lead a very dull, depressing existence.

And we all know from my earlier admissions that I don’t treat my body like a temple, but more a house you rent out with a group of mates for a hen’s party – you have a good time in it but make a rushed, panicked effort to clean it up enough to get your bond back.

Good lord, it sounds dismal.

Add to this that through the week, two of my friends announced they were writing books – one had just finished, the other had secured a publisher.

Two others had just graduated as doctors.

Another fabulous friend was admitted as a fully legit lawyer and, better still, got a fresh batch of bitchin’ business cards.

Meanwhile, this year I had what some people might call a mid-twenties crisis. After leaving an unhappy workplace, I found myself without a job, without a permanent address and with a shitload of boxes. But I didn’t do any of the classic life crisis things. I didn’t trek across the wildness to find myself. I didn’t start my own business. I didn’t even write the mini series I would tell people was a comment on country journalism and an examination of small town Australia in the context of a changing media landscape when it was really based on me and hugely egocentric.

I spent all of today baking gingerbread that was underwhelming at best.

I haven’t yet showered – or brushed my teeth – and it’s 3.02pm.

My breakfast and lunch was said disappointing Christmas biscuits.

So what all does this say about the life I’ve chosen to lead? Did I spend my year wisely? Am I proud of who I am?

Hmmm. I don’t know about you, but I think I’m going to need some much stronger rumballs to answer those questions.