The most excited I've ever been

It's interesting reading your list - it's nice to have positive milestones to look back on.

It caused me to try to think of things that actually excite me.   Came up with a big fat zero.   Every big moment in my past came along with a bag full of hassle that took the shine off before it even happened.

That's how I feel about the stuff that I'm "supposed" to find exciting - holidays and Xmas for example, and especially sitting on a sandy beach far from shade and cool drinks.

That's how I feel about the stuff that I'm "supposed" to find exciting - holidays and Xmas for example, and especially sitting on a sandy beach far from shade and cool drinks.

Every Silver lining has its cloud. 

Same here - I've always said that the thing that makes me good at engineering (and particularly writing contracts and software) is that I'm good at the "how could this break?" game. In normal life that's called risk aversion and "being negative" :-)

I am aware I have a negative outlook - as an engineer, I concentrate on problems - things that are fixed can be forgotten so all of my processing is based around finding problems.   Invariably, any positive things or 'surprises' are laden with many negatives.