Politics. Religion. Beef-lovers vs. vegans. The notion that anyone is a better James Bond than Sean Connery. In my life, I’ve found certain topics to always engender impassioned debate and are considered taboo in some polite circles. The other topic?
New Year’s resolutions.
People are all over the map on these and whether they are of value. Some love them and look forward to mapping out all of the ways they will scrub their life clean of past disappointments and be born again in a shiny new year.
A common argument against them (which I think makes a lot of sense) is that why must you pick something as arbitrary as the start of the year to make positive changes? Isn’t any moment of any day just as good? Why wait?
Fair points. I’ve long liked New Year’s resolutions for myself (more on this in a moment) because it’s very easy for me to get rolling along and not find particular moments to stop and take stock of what direction I am even rolling in. Don’t we all get like that? Don’t we all get sucked up in work, family, friends and the general fast-pace of life in 2010 and forget to stop and ask “Why a second… is this even where I want to be headed?” I am trying to work more of these stop-and-think moments into my life this year, but it’s always good to know that one time per year, EVERYONE seems to be talking about what they should be changing or doing better.
The reason I emphasize why I like the New Year’s resolution for myself is that I usually do a half-decent job of keeping some of my resolutions in mind. Sure, I don’t nail all of them, but I have cleaned out old drawers and found resolution lists and was pleasantly surprised that I got about half of my resolutions taken care of. Allow me a moment to bask in my own complete and utter awesomeness…. Ahhhh! Refreshing!
But go to any commercial gym in America in the month of January and you will see the inevitable mob scene of people looking to start off their resolutions to get in shape and lose weight. What happens in February? Probably 9 out of 10 of those people give it all up. So clearly this approach is not working for everyone out there. Let’s just all get on the same page and collectively hope that Lindsay Lohan can meet her resolution for 2010. I think that is a cause we can all believe in.
So my own resolutions? This is not a completely finalized list just yet, but this is the general scope:
- At least one posting for Fierceandmighty.com a day. So far, I am en fuego.
- Finally go snowboarding for the first time. My GF got me a really nice full-on boarding outfit from Burton.
- Attend a seminar on entrepreneurship. I just find this topic endlessly fascinating and would love to learn more, irrespective of whether I decide to up and take the plunge into my own business at some point.
- Attend a strength/conditioning seminar. I went to one about 4 years ago, had a lot of fun and have been meaning to go to another ever since.
- Trying to figure out my weight training goals right now. I have some general ideas on lifting figures (315 bench, 500 deadlift and 500 squat), but those need to be balanced against all of the soccer and other sports I plan on taking part in.
- Finally stake my rightful claim as lost heir to the Polish monarchy and begin my inevitable march towards world domination through the power of kielbasa and pierogies. This one almost feels like a foregone conclusion.
For a nice top 10 list of suggestions on how to get your resolutions to stick, go on over to this post at Lifehacker (numbers 1, 2 and 5 are my faves).
Now go out there and get cracking on your lists… and if you hate resolutions? At least take a pause moment and assess your life’s direction. 5 minutes of honest reflection is a precious, precious thing.
yes any time insults become unlawful, something is going badly wrong. It’s mildly amusing, though, to think about dozens of Southern Baptist preachers going to the pokey for defaming Mormons and Catholics, as lots of them do on a pretty regular basis….Thank you!!:D