2004 New Year's Resolutions....

[fajrdrako]

I love New Year's Resolutions. Always did. Some years I make elaborate lists; most years I make promises to myself to write, exercise, diet, do yoga, whatever seems to be the significant thing on my mind that year. Sometimes I follow through all year. Sometimes I forget the resolutions by the second week of January. I don't particularly care: the point, I think, is not to demand 100% success of myself, but to take time at the beginning of the year to consider my lifestyle and decide what I want and what I don't want to be doing all year.

This year I made a list.

1. Follow a morning routine.

If I am edging closer to a yoga lifestyle, this seems to be the place to start. I've been following the advice of the book Simple Steps which involve certain daily activities. I know from experience that if I leave them till after work, or till evening, I probably won't do them. So: take time in the morning. Yoga, meditation, sunscreen, tooth-flossing, all those things that I tend to forget if I don't take care not to.

This means leaving time for the routine each morning. This means going to bed fairly early. That is the difficult part.


2. Follow the Ayurvedic diet.

I don't mean following the diet Aliya gave me without any deviation all year. I plan to be much easier on myself than that. But it does mean being careful about when, where and how I overindulge, and generally remembering and using the Ayurvedic principles.

It also means having no coffee all year. None.


3. Daily walking and doing weights on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

The business of walking from Rivendell to Minas Tirith is only the fannish fun that decorates the walking. The point is to keep it up daily. If the weather is horrendous, I can substitute time on the treadmill or cross-training machines at the fitness club (or the apartment building's basement exercise room) for walking outdoors.


4. Keep a clean, uncluttered apartment.

This matters to me more maybe than it ought. I don't want to be acquisitive, so why do I have so much stuff? And why, when I don't want to be surrounded by possessions, do I find it so hard to part with them? The act of uncluttering is wildly liberating and I intend to continue it. Not to the point of total austerity, but certainly to a more austere point than I am at now.

Some of this is (as with the morning routine) accomplished by following the advice in Simple Steps - e.g., clean and sort one drawer or closet per week.

Another resolve: wash my dishes every day. And - worst of all - put them away.


5. Read more.

I love to read. I haven't been finding enough time to read. I must do it more. I have too many unread books, and there are so many things I want to read. This includes slash, magazines, and languages other than English.


6. Write more.


7. Sleep sufficiently.

I seem to need a lot of sleep, and feeling rested seems to be crucially important to my health and happiness. But how to do it, and accomplish all the rest? Well, if it was easy, I wouldn't need resolutions, would I?


8. Think about important goals.

Do I even have any? Should I have them? I know the answer is yes, and yes, but I need a lot more thought on this.


9. Save money.

This involves (1) saving a little each week to go to Malta in 2005 or 2006, but it also involves the long-term saving that I have so far not accomplished. With any luck I'll be so busy going to the fitness club and reading library books that I'll have no time to spend money.


10. Contact people I'm out of touch with and don't want to be.

I used to be a good letter-writer. In the past decade - well, it's pathetic, as any of my correspondents would agree. I don't want to drift away from friends and relatives. I especially want to keep in touch with my remaining aunt and my cousins. It doesn't seem right to set a quota - say, write a letter every week, or every month - but I really do want to do more than I have done.

11. Keep up with comics reading.

This may sound like an odd resolution, when it's such a pleasure. But I have trouble finding time to read, and sometimes several months goes by, and I fall behind in what's happening in any given title - give up on unread back issues and leap into the middle of a new continuity, feeling lost. Sometimes I discover how good the issues are that I missed, or (conversely) that the comic has become so bad with a certain writer and/or artist that I should have dropped it from my subscription list several months back.

So: what I buy, I will read. On a weekly basis.


12. Practise Esperanto.

I am tired of being embarrassed by my poor speaking ability when the language is so easy. I will practise it every day - writing in my Esperanto livejournal, or reading, or listening to it.

~ ~ ~

Do you think I can keep these resolutions? For a month, maybe? A week? Six months? Forever? There was a year (possibly 1985) in which I did yoga on 363 days - only missed a few days practising yoga in the whole year. If I could do it then, I can do it now.

Wish me luck!

Comments

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

"It also means having no coffee all year. None."

*GASP!*

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Scary, isn't it?

[blackbyrde.livejournal.com]

Good resolutions.

I think I will steal numbers 3, 5, 6, 7 and 10 from you. :) Also I will join a pre-natal yoga class - my torso is not so bendy anymore. :P

I think you can do it. :) Losing all that weight took a lot of commitment. I can also bother you lots about writing stories. :) Good luck. :)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Feel free to steal all you like - there are more than enough good intentions to go around!

A pre-natal class would be good. There's a teacher I could recommend who specializes in that - her name is Nicki, and I studied with her a bit (not the re-natal bit) - but you night know of a good class anyway. I think pre-natal yoga is a wonderful thing to do, good for both mother and child.

Thanks for the vote of confidence! Three days and so far so good (except for a slice of pecan pie last night, but that was for maboroshi's birthday, so it's okay).

Please do bother me about stories - I am well aware that I still owe you a POTC challenge story. Still not finished. Will be soon. (Honest.)