I have always had mixed feelings on the "New Years Resolution." A couple years ago, people started asking me what my New Years resolution was. I hadn't really thought about it - I didn't know that was a real thing. I just thought it was something gyms used to seduce new members. To me, January 1st has sort of the same feeling as your birthday: you are technically a year older, but what big changes could 24 hours (or even 1 hour) bring? You never actually feel older or different (unless of course you're turning 21 and you've been awarded certain new and wonderful privileges). I never saw the point in making a New Years resolution because if I wanted to change something, I could do it any time I wanted. But I've slowly come around to them. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea that so many people are at least putting their minds in a place of betterment. I'm a huge believer in the law of attraction and the idea that the landscape of your thoughts holds an immeasurable power on the physical world around you. Not like Mathilda or anything, just that if you put your mind towards something in a positive way, the outcome will be positive. This is not some sort of magic, it's just that your determination to see something work out disallows you to view the results as anything but positive. So you view any outcome as the way it was meant to be. I think this is the thing that New Years resolutions, for me, should achieve. The vague, overarching, life-changing resolutions (work out more, eat healthier, cook more) don't exactly excite me. I would never be able to achieve something so lacking in structure. And how would I know when it's achieved? Even something like "work out every other day" or "learn a new recipe every week" wouldn't work for me, because I know myself well enough to know I would simply stop doing them. So for my resolutions, I've chosen ten tasks that I want to accomplish in 2014. All of these things are actionable, progress me towards an overall goal, and most importantly, are fun. So cheers to 2014, and doing more things you love. If I were making a vague, arbitrary, overarching resolution, that would be it, by the way.
1. Take a cooking class
2. Improve my French
3. Travel to a new country
4. Write a story
5. Go on a road trip
6. Learn how to garden
7. Find a yoga studio I like
8. Send more handwritten cards
9. Go camping
10. Check off some of the books on my to-read list
ça va!