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New Year's Resolutions

January 4, 2008

by Nate

New Year's Resolutions were trite before my conception and rearing were ever dreamed of, so I won't waste time apologizing for continuing to engage in this traditional and traditionally shallow exercise of planned self-improvement. A can-do spirit of small and practical steps to personal betterment strikes me as a positive aspect of our culture, even if it inevitably entails vast amounts of failure and no small amount of silliness. (Hm... I think I just wasted time apologizing.) I will, at least, put my list after the cut/jump/read-more-link to save the unwary.

  1. Recognize that becoming better requires incremental change, which will inevitably involve failure. Do not use failures as an excuse to abandon the development of new habits.
  2. Wake up earlier in the morning. Wake up by at least 7am. Even if I use the time between then and my departure for work just to drink coffee and sit at the computer, I need to interrupt the happiness of drowsiness and procrastination that getting up late encourages.
  3. Find at least one thing to help out with at church that isn't easy.
  4. Keep exercising with HB. Begin addition of cardiovascular exercise.
  5. Give up all video games except Puzzle Pirates and Pet Dragons on Facebook. Both are essentially limited. In the same time that I now use for video games, either 1) watch a movie (NOT a recorded TV show), 2) read a book, or 3) work on something web development related.
  6. Only ever watch a recorded TV show if it's with Rebekah. This should limit my ability to waste time by myself.
  7. Reign in my pronouncements of judgment. Sure, I like to make jokes about how judgmental I am, but I also tread a bit too hard on the side of self-righteousness and over-confidence.
  8. Take seriously the idea that some of the most important truths in the world are things I don't yet believe.
  9. Work on my book.
  10. Get the blog working well and blog 2-3 times a week.

Comments

On January 4 at 8'09 PMPermalink, Moss wrote:

1

Recognize that becoming better requires incremental change, which will inevitably involve failure. Do not use failures as an excuse to abandon the development of new habits.

This may be less a resolution than a meta-resolution, but regardless, it is one of the best things to recognize. It’s a lesson I keep relearning.

Also, I’d like to adopt numbers 8 and 10 as resolutions of my own, too.

On January 8 at 7'21 AMPermalink, Erika wrote:

2

What sort of book?

On January 9 at 11'21 AMPermalink, Nate wrote:

3

Moss: Thanks for the solidarity! I also agree with your recategorization of my first resolution. But “meta” is rather like salt, in my opinion: almost everything tastes better with a healthy dash of it.

Erika: It’s a young-adult novel (kinda) about a pastor’s kid in an Evangelical church. It’s about Christianity and freedom and all that jazz. I wrote half of it (about 120 pages) while I was in Cameroon, then abruptly ran out of inspiration. But I’ve been thinking about it ever since and want to take it up again.