Tuesday, January 01, 2008, posted by Q6 at 3:31 PM
I'm not the kind of person that makes resolutions for the new year. My life--lately, anyway--has been all about making incremental, positive changes. Thinking about the year ahead, as most people tend to do in early January, has brought several things to mind. In the final analysis, I'm not making resolutions, per se, but I am strengthening my resolve to do certain tasks with more follow-through (something I've been criticized for by many people in the past decade). I'm blogging about this more for my own benefit than that of my readership, but what blog isn't, really?


Here's what some of 2008 will look like for me:

--We're going to get this wedding planned without any of that get-it-done-at-the-last-minute stuff I've become so good at. There's a set list of things to accomplish, and there's no reason why it can't get planned ahead of time.

--I'm going to fix up this house. It took me over a year to simply finish plastering and painting the ceiling in the living room, and I'll be kicking myself for a very long time about my procrastination (I got it done in two days, by the way). I'll do a little each week--it won't seem like much at the time, but it will be steadily done, not done in small bursts in between long periods of inaction.

--I'm going to get my book written the same way. on Christmas Eve my fiancee and I had very productive conversation about the ten pages I'd completed not long ago, and we've decided that the book should take a different path. The story will, in my opinion, be harder to structure; it will be easier to tell, however, and therefore the writing should come easier. Fondue restaurants are really cool, by the way.

--Professionally, I'm not sure what will happen. Something has to happen, though, because I'm in something of a professional rut right now (and not because I'm on Winter Break). I need to keep this job for several more years--at my current school, or somewhere else--more for financial reasons than anything else. As far as fulfillment goes, however, I fear I may have peaked . . . or perhaps I've become too frustrated with the current system to become innovative . . . in any event, I've got to figure out what's missing and fix it.

--Finally, there's my family. I'm going to call my mother more often (again with the procrastination problem--I've made this statement before), and I'm going to welcome my fiancee (in August, my wife) into the house. There are no problems there, and it's an adjustment I'm not only looking forward to but I'm thinking will be good for me in several ways. Then there's my son, for whom the coming year will bring grade improvement, the whole driving thing, and (hopefully) gainful employment as soon as child labor laws will allow. Challenges all, but ones I hope to work with him on rather than fight with him about.

For the schedule-related stuff, I'd like to thank the kind people at HassleMe, who will be sending me reminder e-mails; for my house renovation, I know that Home Depot won't let me down; for the motivation stuff, my fiancee is my rock, my muse, and (occasionally) the cattle prod I so desperately need. As for my son, well . . . he can and will rise to the occasion, and I will lead by example.

Bring on 2008.
 
2 Comments:


At 9:51 PM, Anonymous Anonymous

Hey. Thanks for the shout out, the kudos, the support, and the love.

Yeah. The love.

A reminder: http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/005701.php

No insanity, please. I want to keep you.

 

At 6:50 AM, Blogger Unknown

Glad you're finding hassleme useful. Happy new year!