Hi Hubski! Did you make a New Year's resolution? Wanna share?
In the past I've made resolutions like: memorize one poem per month, finish a song I've been working on, do 30 push-ups a day, work on my novel every week, etc. Concrete things with realistic goals. I'd guess I'm about 25% successful on keeping resolutions.
This year, it's a little different. On New Year's eve, one of my son's friends was asking me about what it's like to have cancer (I have lymphoma and have been in remission for 4 years, doing well). It reminded me of a commitment I made while I was in treatment -- we cannot control the length of our lives, but we can control how much we live within the time we're given. If we can live twice as much each day, even if we live a life that's a little shorter we can still get much more out of life than otherwise.
How do we live more in each day? Simply by being more attentive and appreciative of the details around us, the people around us and things big and small, especially the small. For example, that lamp on the end table, I haven't thought much about it in a while but what a nice shape it is. I wonder who made it? Did they have fun designing it? I remember when I bought it, how happy I was with how it looked. It still makes me happy. It is good.
This awareness and appreciation is something that can be practiced, and for a long time I was pretty good at doing this. However I've noticed that past couple of years I've not been as consciously aware of it. I think I still do it often, but It's too easy to not work on it, to practice it, to strive for more. I want to be more aware and keep practicing!
So this year my resolution is to actively practice awareness every day, noticing and appreciating the things and the people around me.
What's yours?
Propose! Wow! Congratulations! As a guy that has failed at so many resolutions, can I recommend that for #1 you tweak it be more concrete? For example: I will practice piano an average of 10 minutes per day, with a minimum 70 minutes for week (to cover when I miss a day).
It's not so much a New Year's Resolution, but my impending 50th birthday this year, that has driven me to diet and exercise. I started, half-heartedly, in mid-December. I knew that the holidays would be full of wonderful food, drink, and laziness, so I mainly focused on controlling portion size, and getting more dog-walks in each day. And I lost 8 pounds! So I am an even 260 pounds today. By my 50th birthday I would like to be somewhere in the 220-230 range, and - most importantly - doing yoga regularly. The real underlying goal is to be more fit when I hit 50, so I can move into the second half of my life fitter, more energetic, and feeling better about my physical condition. I don't have a "weight loss goal", instead I have a "feeling better and healthier" goal. The Keto diet seems to be the right thing for my body - it's already responding well to it - and improving my flexibility, while reducing the load on my knees and ankles, are all Good Things.
1. Do more things. By that I mean to minimize the time I waste on the Internet and come up with more types of things to do with friends. Kind of tired of the coffee shop/restaurant/bar outings. Went to the country house recently and we played hockey and board games and that was so much better! I need more of that in my life. 2. Be a more helpful person. I want to be the person that starts cleaning up at the end of a friend’s party, that helps you learn how to drive, that brings a cake to the dinner. I’ve always been happy to do those things, but often I had to be asked or see someone already cleaning up that I would help. Time to take more initiative by myself :)
Actually I've been thinking a lot lately about generally being "awake" in life. It's a good idea. I am giving up smoking! For only the fourth year running.