Resolving Resolutions

2008 is drawing to a close. I am a "New Years Resolution" type of person, so I tend to take some time at the end of each year and the beginning of the next to review my resolutions from last year and make some resolutions for the new year. These are my resolutions from 2008. I tend to look at them and see what worked (successful) and what didn't work (unsuccessful). In between the resolutions I consider successful and unsuccessful are the ones that are either ambivalent (a little bit of both) or irrelevant (overcome by events).

2008 RESOLUTIONS

1. Do something personally productive within my environment the equivalent of every day, and record those actions, so that I can see the activity going on.

I would rate this one as success. I was not able to do something personally productive every day - life and "The Project That Almost Broke Me" intervened and it was a brutally stressful year at various times - but, I consider it a success because I was able to maintain daily logs (of both work and personal items) through the year and both the process of keeping the logs and reviewing them were very insightful. So, though I did not success in the literal sense, the intention was highly successful.

2. Stay in touch with old friends. Create and maintain a communications/contact log.

I would rate this one as successful - the purpose of it was to not let my personal contacts fall into disarray because I was otherwise occupied and in that, I think it was a successful resolution.

3. Use mass transit the equivalent of once every ten working days. Resulting in a reduction of my commute foodprint by 10%.

Also successful. Between mass transit and virtual working I was able to meet and exceed this goal.

4. Take 52 day trips to different places in order to explore and expand my environment.

Not successful. I only managed to get out and about exploring about half the amount of time I wanted to. The intention of this resolution was to just enjoy the small paradise that I live in - I was able to enjoy it, but not as much as I would have liked to. On far too many weekends I was simply burnt out.

5. Aggressively support a specific charity through the year, one that engages you.

This one was not successful. I did more charitable support work in 2008 than in 2007, but it was not as focused as I would have liked. I may carry this one into next year.

6. Spend time each day in prayer and meditation.

Unsuccessful here as well. I lost a lot of focus during the year to stress (I would not hesitate to say 2008 was the most stressful year I have had in a decade or more - there were times when the work or personal life was more intense, but not more stressful.) One of the drawbacks of that level of stress was a loss of focus.

7. Engage in creative writing at a pace of approximately 1 page per day.

Unsuccessful - though I did manage to write far more than I had the previous year and I liked the quality of writing, it lacked the discipline and their were long periods of time when my inner voice was silent or muddled.

8. Learn 12 New Things

Unsuccessful as well. There was learning in the previous year, but too much of it was in the form of negative lessons - learning things the hard way - learning things to NOT do in the future. It counts as learning, but it missed the purpose and intent of the resolution.

9. Engage in some nest building activity every week, for 52 nest building things, and log those things so that you can track them.

Unsuccessful as well, but I definitely intend on carrying this one into the near year. At its root what I want to do is pay more attention in crafting the small portion of the world that I live within.

10. Journal on a daily basis.

Successful. That alone makes me consider the whole exercise a success. I did a very good job this year of observing and self awareness, which means I am entering 2009 feeling - good, feeling strong, feeling so very fortunate.