I decided to stay in for New Years Eve, this year, and do some good, long thinking. While I love a good party as much as the next person, I’m tired and alone in a new city, and you know what? No excuses – I just don’t feel like it. So here I am. I just finished unpacking my life out of my suitcase and into a closet (or at least it feels like one – lucky I’m not claustrophobic!). It’s starting to look more like me, down to the balls of yarn on my floor. I’ll have a nice long roam tomorrow and celebrate the new year with a morass of people I don’t know (because I prefer hung over strangers to drunk ones), but tonight is for thinking.
New Years resolutions are a tricky business. I don’t think it makes any sense to store up resolutions just to save for this day, because if it’s something that needs fixing, then fix it right away. I think we should always be watchful and employ careful introspection. That being said, sometimes markers in the sands of time are a good thing, so we don’t get swept away by the flow of time.
So, at this giant marker in time, December 31st, 2014, I’ll make my first resolution. I will spend more time being consciously mindful of what I do. I will set resolutions at the beginning, and I will retrospect at the end.
So, since it’s the end of the year, I should retrospect, at least a little. 2014 was not my most successful year, if you want to measure my years against one another. As silly and arbitrary as the scale seems, the statement rings true to me. Yes, it was very fulfilling on a relationship level, but it wasn’t that fulfilling on a professional, personal, or interpersonal level. Considering the disaster that was 2013, however, I will take it – not falling totally flat on my face is an improvement.
But I can do better than recover in 2015. So, 2014, you were my baby step, my stumbling block, my getting back on the horse after breaking every single bone in three places. 2015, leggo.
So, one resolution down, and all the other ones to think about.
It’s really not easy to come up with resolutions, but I think there’s one thing I can definitely can say. I don’t want to be a whole new person in 2015. I’ve put 20-odd years of work into the person I have been, and I rather like her, weaknesses and flaws, strengths and talents alike. So, let’s chuck out the whole nonsense about being a whole new person in 2015 – I don’t want to start 2015 as a fraud.
I try to practice the fix it when it’s broken philosophy, so I already have some resolutions that I made in 2014 and now I’m doing my best to stick to. I’m trying to lose weight, by watching more carefully what I eat, controlling my portions, and going to the gym more regularly. I’m trying to be more financially savvy, by considering what purchases I really need, delaying purchases by at least a week to avoid impulse buys, and by actually looking at my credit card bill every month. I gave blood, I’m getting more organized (in fits and starts) and I’ve made a conscious decision to take care of my appearance and take pride in looking good, not out of insecurity but out of growing up.
That tends to cover a lot of the standard New Years Resolutions that silly web articles push in your face. Two of some of the more popular ones have been Elite Daily’s resolutions for 20 somethings (I think the article and the website are both full of condescending pap) and Buzzfeed’s real list of resolutions for 20 year olds, which is a little more sensible but also fairly standard. So they’re no help – I’ve already got those bases covered.
Instead, I think I’m going to turn to my list of things I want to be, and draw strength and ideas for that. It was inspired by a quotation (probably by the zen quotation goblins who lurk in the bowels of the internet and slap random people’s names on it)
When I was 5 years old, my mom always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down “happy.” They told me I didn’t understand the assignment and I told them they didn’t understand life.
This is my list:
- Happy and Content
- Leader, CEO, Role Model
- Competant, Knowledgeable, Aware
- Charitable, Kind, Understanding, but not Naive
- A Mother that my kids will fight over who will have me for Christmas
- Constant Friend, Valuable Associate, and Good Networker
- Personable, Socialable, and Articulate
- Artist, Author, Creator and Designer
- Never complacent, never done learning
Meditating on that, I think I have a few more solid ideas of more resolutions for the new year. So, in no particular order:
- I will continue making more specific resolutions at the beginning of the month, week, and day, and I will reflect at the end of each of them.
- I want to stop feeling guilty about taking time to embroider, to write, to crochet or knit, or to just game, but I want to put a better fence around those activities, so they don’t take time that I should be focusing on my studies.
- I already said I wanted to be more organized, so to elaborate on that, I’ll resolve to have the foresight to plan and block off my time more effectively and the willpower to stick to that plan.
- I will make five more professional contacts, and I will renew five professional contacts that I have already made
- I will donate time to a soup kitchen, and I will donate blood
- I will finish at least one actuarial exam this year, and be studying for a second by the end of the year
- I will take three courses, through school or Coursera, that are purely for my academic interest.
- I will hang out with someone who is not my significant other at least once a week
- I will write for ten minutes a day, every day.
That feels like a lot. Maybe it’s too much, but I won’t know until I try. I will do it, though. 2015, I am ready for you now.
Happy New Years all!
Head Always High 