The new year is always the time that I, like most, look back on the last twelve months with a critical eye and look forward to the coming year with hope. This could be a post where I try to analyze where I went wrong and what I did right in 2010 but I think it's best to just let sleeping dogs lie. What I need to do is come up general sketch of what I want 2011 to look like and see how close my predictions come. I believe they calls these 'resolutions' in the parlance of the times, but I'm wary of these things as they always seem to fire a little too loud but sound flat as they echoes bounce off the following days.
T made a great point today, that resolutions usually fail because they mostly point to things that people want, and those wants change or become diluted by circumstances. We want to lose weight, stop smoking, focus, exercise more, etc. But these are feats of will, and as I've been told, cannot be sustained. A better method, one that I'm going to try to subscribe to, is to define these things as identity. You're not trying to lose weight and exercise more, you're an athletic person. You're not trying to stop smoking, you're a non-smoker. By clearly defining the person I want to be I hope to have an easier time making decisions that are more in line with that identity.
So. The question becomes not 'what are my new years resolutions' but rather 'who am I resolved to be?'
