On Resolutions

I know this post is a month and a half late, but I was reflecting on the resolutions I made this year, and found it appropriate to write about.  I’ve always made New Year’s Resolutions, but it is only recently that I have started writing them down and returning to them every couple of months or so to remind myself of them and to see if I am keeping up with them.  Resolution’s for 2015 had some typical resolutions, one’s that I make just about every year, and some that relate to where I currently am in life.

1. Be healthy.  In other words ,exercise more and eat less (eat healthier).  Isn’t this a resolution that just about every average person in America puts on their resolution list?  I don’t know about you guys, but the eating is always the hardest part.  The exercise I can get up on the morning and do at 4:30am before work, but the eating.  The. Eating. All the planning and the cooking.  By the time I get home from work I am exhausted and the last thing I want to do is spend 30-60 minutes cooking. However, I have come to realize that if I slip up a couple of times, it is not the end of the world.  Tomorrow is a new day, and I can start again, which is where resolution #2 comes in.

2. Don’t give up when resolution #1 isn’t done perfectly.  We are human.  We slip up.  We make mistakes.  During previous years, if I had screwed up and eaten junk food more than one day in a row, I would give up for the week or the month or, possibly, for the year because I am a perfectionist, and when something isn’t done perfectly, it isn’t worth doing at all.  This year, I decided that I am going to work on that, so although this specific resolution was written to relate to resolution #1, I am actually working on a much bigger issue.

3&4. Travel more, even if it is alone & Take more risks.  These resolutions, like 1 and 2, go together.  Like many self-proclaimed nerds, I am an introvert.  I am socially awkward.  It just happens to turn out, that I am also single, and it was until recently that I thought that in order to have fun traveling, I needed to do it with someone.  Don’t get me wrong, I have people that I could travel with, but I am a teacher and the most ideal time to travel for me is not typically the ideal time to travel for my friends.  I also love wandering around a museum for hours or, depending on my mood, I will jam pack as many different sight-seeing opportunities into one day as possible.  I do not know many people who are willing to do both of these things while traveling.  This year, I have decided that I do not necessarily NEED a person to travel with, that I can travel on my own, and I intend to do just that.  I can’t wait to update you all on my travels this year.  Resolution 4 goes with this because traveling alone is a risk.  You are going into a place that you may not necessarily know much about, if something goes wrong, you do not have a contact close by.  But, also, traveling alone forces you out of a comfort zone.  For me, in particular, it will force a socially awkward introvert into social situation I would not otherwise have put myself in, and this is both scary and exciting.

5. Stop caring what others think.  So many articles that I have read about things to do in order to be a happier person, mention this simple piece of information.  Happy people don’t care about what others think of them.  So I am working on not letting what others think of me affect who I am as a person.  I will not change who I am in order to please these other people.  I need to be proud of me.

So, if you made New Year’s resolutions, I encourage you to reflect back on them.  Are you keeping them? Are you not keeping them? Is there anything you think you should change about them? To me, just because we made them at the beginning of the year doesn’t mean we should forget about them the minute we stop keeping them.