convenience-store resolutions

[asakiyume]

(Which, one hopes, aren't resolutions of convenience...)

I went into a convenience store on January 1 to buy a bottle of red wine, and the guys at the counter and I had a round of happy-new-year wishes, and I said something like, "May it be a good one," and then one of the guys said,

"Yeah, my resolution this year is not to settle." Good resolution, I thought (though--because I'm constitutionally unable to keep from putting riders and qualifications on statements like this--I think "settling" is created in your own head. The same action can be settling, or not, depending on how you make up your mind to feel about it.)

"Mine is to do the hard things," I said. "Here's to success for both of us."

"Yeah!" he said.

----

So yeah, that's my amorphous, large-scale goal.

Slightly less amorphous than that is the goal to make significant progress on my new novel. I didn't do too well with that goal last year (didn't do much writing at all last year), but maybe this year will be better.

Even more fine-grained goal: utilize my library's free Mango Language account to learn Spanish. I've started on this! Maybe I should make the goal to do a lesson at least three times a week. What I can say so far that I didn't already know: Estoy bien.

I may also work up a running goal (meaning: a goal related to running) but I haven't got one yet.

Comments

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

I'm working on a variation or that, which is more like "Don't multitask." That's basically a note to myself to not spend time doing things that I'm ok with dividing with something else. If I'm ok with dividing my attention between a and b, then perhaps I shouldn't be doing thing a or b at all.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting way of looking at it! I'd always thought of it in terms of being sure to give each thing the attention it deserves (which I've felt like I'm not doing if I'm multitasking), or in terms of being present for people (i.e., don't be typing an LJ comment while my kids are talking to me)--but what I like about your way of framing it is that it makes you question the value of *both* activities.