Welcome, 2018

Another Year!

There is always something about the new year that makes you reflect. Perhaps it’s because it’s a new beginning. You can wipe the slate clean, so to speak, and start fresh. You think of goals or resolutions you wish to accomplish for the year. You think of all the new, good habits you’re going form this year.

For myself, I never know what to make of a new year. The calendar year, that is. I count the beginning of a new year in two different ways. The first being my birthday. The second, Chinese New Year. I’m not sure why I measure my year that way, but I do. I think it has something to do with the way I view life.

Regardless of when the year starts, figuring out how I want the year to go is what I focus on first.

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends on a good deal on where you want to get to.”

“I don’t much care where –”

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”

Alice and the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland

When December 31st rolls around, what would you like to say you did? Did you take that extra art class that you wanted? Wrote that letter to a friend? Traveled to your dream spot? Have the things you’ve been meaning to do actually been done?

The top three, or five, or ten

When I’ve thought a bit about how I want my year to look, I choose what I absolutely want done by December 31st. I did try to think of ten things I wanted to cross off my list, but that would set me up for failure. Between work and school and, well, life, ten will be a reach for me. Choosing a top three has me feeling lazy. So I settled somewhere in the middle and chose five.

  1. Reach an A1 level in Russian.
  2. Finish two cross-stitching projects.
  3. Research three family names for my genealogy project.
  4. Complete three letter exchanges (I write and they reply or they write and I reply) with three of my pen pals.
  5. Write a journal entry every week.

I try to tie these goals into my top five values to ensure I’m in alignment with myself.

And so begins another year!

Try not to be a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value.

Albert Einstein

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