Resolution finale: life in 2011
It was difficult to come up with a general, all-encompassing “life” resolution for 2011. I’m actually on the fence about the whole new year’s resolutions practice–while it is a good time to take stock of one’s life, changing for the better should be something done more often than once a year.
That said, it is fun to make lists. Lists are fabulous.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.– Alfred, Lord Tennyson
I thought of many possible life resolutions:
- Do something new every week.
- Say yes.
- Be brave.
- Challenge myself.
- …and so on and so forth
–but as I sat down to write about these things, I realized that these were all “pretty phrases” but I had no real way of making sure I kept to this kind of resolution, or that it was impractical to structure the resolution in order to track “progress”. Do something new every week? WHAT new thing? Can I eat ampalaya and call it my “something new” for the week? Say yes–how do I measure “yes significance”? And so on. And so I kept going back to the drawing board.
And then, I realized–I already have a good list, a list I made quite a while ago. My 30 before 30 list is the best thing to draw resolutions from. Time is running out, after all! By June 2013, I should have done 30 things. (Iknowiknowiknow, the list isn’t even complete yet. Care to suggest something? :D)
By the end of 2011, I should have crossed off 15 things from my 30 before 30 list.
Talk about hitting two birds with one stone. The things listed are all “new” things, activities that require a bit of bravery, a dash of creativity. And I’ve (just about) finished three, so that leaves me to catch up with 12 items–roughly one item per month of 2011! It’s almost as if it was made for a new year resolution list. ;)
Here’s to 2011!