New Year's Resolutions

On one hand, making New Year’s resolutions feels trite and doomed to failure.

On the other hand, making New Year’s resolutions might lead to the formation of better habits.  If they don’t last forever, that’s okay.  Even if it just lasts a few weeks, that’s a few weeks with better habits than if I didn’t set a resolution.

And, hey, it worked last year. 

I’ve been mulling over what changes I’d like in my life, and I keep coming back to this:

Love what you have and where you are.

I live a lovely existence.  I’m healthy.  My partner is my favorite person.  We have wonderful, stupendous friends.  I like the people with whom I work.  I have a hobby I love that yields gifts for others as well as myself.  Andrew’s and my extended families are mostly delightful, and they care about us and we care about them.  I’ve also got a lot of nice stuff like yarn and music and exercise equipment.

So I want to spend time appreciating what I have.  In concrete terms, it boils down to this:

1.  I resolve to go through my music collection and really listen to albums.  This might sound like a silly resolution to you, but that’s why it’s mine and not yours.

2.  Exercise.  I have accepted that exercise is always going to be a struggle for me.  I’m an “object at rest tends to stay at rest” kind of person.  Even when I’m an object in motion, it takes very little to turn me into an object at rest… like perhaps an encounter with my couch and the remote control.  It’s a habit I will have to consciously pick up many times throughout my life, and this is one of those times.  Andrew and I have decided on the following plan: The first person home will walk Dexter.  (This is usually me.  I’m okay with this.)  Then we will both exercise.  Then we will eat dinner.  My goal is to do this 4 times a week.  

Now, because I know myself, I am also dangling a carrot.  For every time I exercise, I will pay myself $1.50.  However, if I exercise four times in one week, I will pay myself $2.50/workout.  That means I can earn $10 a week.  Does it seem ridiculous to pay myself?  Yes.  Do I think it will work?  Yes. 

3. I want to knit things with yarn I already own.  I have projects that have been in my queue a long time, and I want to work on them.  I have the tendency, like many knitters, to be wowed by new.  New pattern!  New pattern requires new yarn even though I have tons of yarn already!  I want to spend time with the lovely yarn I already own.

4. One final, short-term goal:  I resolve to call the furniture reupholsterers, take the little chair that’s sitting in my garage to them, and have it fixed.  I have saved money for this, and there is no reason it shouldn’t be done.  So I will do it.

What about you?