I realize that is a very depressing title for the New Year and all of its hopes for successful change. But, let's be totally honest with ourselves.....we are personally fighting the duality of our nature. I have friends that are sooooo anti-resolution for New Year that they happily scoff at anyone attempting to make one. And then I had a friend who posted his status on Facebook yesterday: "Say you want a Resolution?"......which made me laugh at our attempts, while taking that thought to heart. No matter what time of year we attempt to make change in our lives, we are staging a personal Revolution. Which is, at the core, the most difficult battle of all. It's right up there with the epic battle of good versus evil! We are mad as hell at the current leadership and aren't going to take it anymore! But since we are the leadership we rebel against, we are our own worst enemy and doomed to fail if we cannot advance from Revolution stage to a fully successful Coup!
If the success rate for Resolutions is so very small, why not sit back and join the scoffers? Because, in my humble opinion, any impetus for change is a good thing! We are smart enough to recognize that things get out of control in our lives....and tend to upset a healthy, balanced way of life.....so we seek to change the behaviors that lead to negative results. Even if we fail at our attempts, the small number of days we tried is better than never having tried at all. We've all heard the "studies" that tell us our bodies even respond to this attempt. Risks of certain diseases lower, even if only a fraction, when we take a chunk of time and live healthier. Almost like the rings of a tree, the attempt to live healthier is recorded in our core. Which leads me to have hope for our attempts each year. Oh, and all you scoffers out there....you are just scoffing at the time in which we hopeless changemantics pick to begin new habits of change. Everyone, throughout the course of the year remarks on how they should be changing something - eating better, talking to relatives more, managing our finances better, etc. Whenever you are comfortable attempting the change is your own personal choice.....sometimes a coup is best attempted in the warmer months anyway.....but for now, here is my list of changes/goals for the coming year (mostly genealogy related, but not exclusively):
1. Spend more time with God, family and friends.
2. Blog more frequently!
3. Exercise more - uhem, I should say, START exercising in some way.
4. Organize my family photos/documents - seriously, this one needs immediate attention, not only for our older photos, but for this generation whose collection is getting older in its own right.
5. Write more - not in a blog fashion, but that pesky book we all work on, which is actually related to goal #1!
6. Reduce sugar intake - I'm OK when it comes to eating healthy, but I still have that sweet tooth which must be conquered!
7. Utilize my "Smart" things to their full potential...which means...using the task/notes sections, complete with alerts/alarms to keep me on task. This will of course mean planning little goals in advance, but this is necessary to maintain any semblance of success with this list.
8. Back-up computer photos/documents MUCH more regularly - kinda like goal #3 if you get my meaning!
9. De-clutter! Which has already begun, a few days prior to the Holiday.....but sooo necessary to get more organized.
10. Explore one new genealogy related tech-product, or resource per month....thoroughly.
So, to keep things reasonable, I will limit myself to 10 this year. Don't forget, that, by Wikipedia's definition, as quoted from another military historian: "A
coup consists of the infiltration of a small, but critical, segment of the state apparatus, which is then used to displace the government from its control of the remainder." How do I propose to infiltrate and be successful? By sheer numbers! I figure, by making a nice big list, one of them is bound to stick! I'll let you know how that goes - same time next year - unless the Mayans were right!
Happy New Year!!!
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