WOO!
I hope 2016 has already offered you pleasant new stuff and things!
I'm actually feeling pretty excited to continue our grand tradition of revisiting last year's resolutions before setting new ones for the new year. So let's talk about resolution-y stuff!
First! Last year's resolutions!
1. More Buddhist readings. More!
So my Plan A was to read "The Tibetan Book of the Dead." I got about this far:
...Yeah it was pretty challenging. I got stuck in a list of gods of various colors holding various weapons and my will gave out on me. I can imagine revisiting this book at some future time, but after I got a bit stymied I decided to switch strategies.
Which is why it's good I had this as my Plan B:
I've already read it but it's been a while since I've revisited it. It's a deceptively short little thing, as each passage feels dense and demanding of thoughtful reflection. Even so, I've just about finished it by now after reading a paragraph or three each morning for a few months now. A few weeks ago I got to my very favorite passage, which I find immensely comforting. Take a listen if you're interested!
2. Reduce mindless and aimless screen time.
I think I've actually been somewhat successful with this resolution, too. Although I still spend plenty of time distracted by phone/stupid Internet stuff, I've also been able to gobble up many articles and actually substantive things through device time, so it feels much less like a drain of my life force.
There's definitely some more work to be done here, though, especially when it comes to doubling up on screens (i.e., on phone while watching TV)--that feels as close to actively rotting my brain as possible, so I'd like to actively stop that.
3. Let more objects go and enjoy what we keep.
Bought this:
Read it, sticky-noted it, made Husband read passages from it. I'm sure it'll be great to use it eventually and I'm actually excited to execute the strategies within. But Jesus it sounds like it'll take a lot of time, and weekend down time feels like a desperately scarce resource to expend on contacting the potential joy derived from my sweaters. Maybe next weekend...?
4. Facilitated by our beautiful new food apparatuses, I want to cook more and learn to cook new stuff.
I get home at 8:30/9 pm most work nights. Better luck next job.
We have gotten better at eating more vegetables, though.
5. More learning on the agenda: Study for and kick the shit out of the licensing exam, and otherwise learn voraciously.
After an exceedingly reasonable and painless* process, 100% resolution success attained.
Otherwise, my repurposing of screen time, continued mentorship by some really amazing supervisors, and periodic self-directed at-times-frenzied manual reading have generated much new learning across a variety of areas. Which is very satisfying.
* = Lies.
6. Remind myself to love all living things each day.
I love you guys but I'm not trekking out to my car to document this, however: I promise I made myself a little notecard thing that I taped to my dashboard with a quote from the Dalai Lama reminding me to "treat everyone as a friend." It has not cured my road rage, but I do think it's helped it abate.
...In addition, to be 100% honest, I also... um.... broke my car horn. Possibly by honking it too much. Safety issues aside, this has actually provided me with an unexpected opportunity to (be forced to) practice distress tolerance and radical acceptance as people drive like freaking maniacal idiots in my immediate vicinity. I honestly think it's been good for me, because on average I have felt much less angry now that I can't actively communicate my displeasure to people in the futile hopes of changing their behavior.
I have also gotten really good at flashing my high-beams to compensate. Because seriously YOU CAN'T MAKE A LEFT TURN AGAINST TRAFFIC IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LIGHT TURNS GREEN YOU'RE GOING TO GET SOMEBODY KILLED.
7. Watch 52 movies!
Just barely but yes!
Okay! I was actually generally much more successful in completing last year's resolutions compared to recent years, and that honestly feels pretty nice.
So let's think about resolutions for this year. I have a few goals:
- Not seven. Seven is too many and it's just a little stupid to have that many.
- Still kind and achievable for future-me's sake.
- But also still a gentle push to make me do stuff that's important to me.
Okay. So:
1. Write more.
To reiterate my last post, I am definitely re-committing myself to writing this blog. It brings me too much joy and serves too important a purpose in extending my identity beyond my career to let this practice fall apart.
The main thing that needs to change to facilitate this is my rigidity about what posts need to look like. This means that I'm going to let myself write posts that maybe aren't as over-decorated and thorough and "sufficient" by whatever arbitrary quixotic standards I have for myself.
More concretely speaking, that means I'm going to let myself write really short stuff sometimes. That also maybe means there won't always be pictures. Or maybe just not multiple pictures, because I find myself avoiding writing posts when I anticipate having to shuffle through google image search results even though it's really not that hard.
I also may need to put a little more faith in my distress tolerance abilities, especially after I've spent the last few months practicing them in my horn-less car.
2. Learn Swedish.
Wild card resolution!
My brother learned Swedish and requested that I learn them so we can gossip in group social situations. There is clearly literally no good reason not to fully comply with this request.
I will be supported in this endeavor by this delightful (and free!) owl-based language learning app.
3. Read stuff and learn things.
This means reading articles instead of tooling around on social media. This means reading books instead of watching more TV than I actually want to watch. This means prioritizing learning stuff because I have a hungry brain and I feel happy when I feed it.
Also this podcast series is awesome for these purposes if you're interested in similar pursuits.
4. Watch 60 movies.
Okay, in kindness to my future self, really the resolution is 52.
But a) I really felt crappy about only watching the bare minimum last year, and b) that fact is illustrative of imbalance between work versus all the other things that must be continually worked on. If I watched two-extra-months-worth of movies, that would signal things are a little more in balance in my life. So I'll accept 52, but I'm shooting for 60.
And that's it for today! I'm hoping I'll get to the 2015 Round-Up tomorrow, so stay tuned!
And again:
{Heart}
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