So, I’m just rambling here, but it seems appropriate for me to say something about my New Year’s Resolutions for 2011.
The very sad fact is that I haven’t made any. I know it’s un-American, and it may well set me apart from the rest of the Western world, but I stopped making New Year’s resolutions when I stopped giving things up for Lent. That was about the time I had an epic multi-part conversation with Jesus in the school chapel after lunch, much to the irritation of Sister Carmelina.
Yes, for about 2 weeks during my Junior year in high school I spent my lunch period, and quite a bit of Sister Carmelina’s morality class, in the school chapel, discussing with Jesus exactly what I was supposed to do with the rest of my life. What, exactly, we decided is between me and Jesus. But, in the end, I changed the channel, shall we say, on the issue of religion.
Oh, but we’re talking about Resolutions. I’ll save the religious talk for an other time.
So, I no longer make New Year’s resolutions. I do, however, delineate a map on my birthday every year. It’s sort of a birthday resolution. My birthday, conveniently, occurs a week before the Gregorian New Year, and the map is a list of things I want to accomplish in the following year.
This year’s map includes–and I’m making this public, so y’all can hold me to it–
- bring my understanding of maths to a second-year college level
- Stop playing at learning a language and actually learn one
- aim my online activities toward earning some money
- choose a subject by the first of March to master, and then expend the resources to become an expert in that subject within 3 years
- other, more personal things involving relationships and reputation.
So, birthday resolutions, rather than New Year’s resolutions. After all, your year starts the day you did. So, what birthday resolutions (or birthday progress maps) have you made for the coming year?
