Hopes and Improvements for The New Year

It's that time of the year, time to start making our New Year's resolutions lists and wish for more willpower into the new year. I've been thinking a lot about resolutions lately. I absolutely LOVE lists, and ANY excuse to make one is good in my book. This year, though, I really want to make a list of "resolutions" that I actually keep, instead of a random list of things that would be nice but irrelevant come the 2nd. So how do I do that?

First, I'm throwing away the resolution bit. Way too much baggage and laziness comes with that word. I've heard other people instead prefer a list of "goals", which is an improvement but I think I've come up with one better. This year, I will be making a list of 'Hopes and Improvements for The New Year'. Good name, right? I think it has a much nicer ring than "resolution", and instead of the guilty and undisciplined feeling I get when I think resolution, I'm instead getting an excited and...kinder to myself feeling. Let's just say I will be much happier following a list of 'Hopes and Improvements' than 'resolutions'.

Now, onto my second problem, the actual goals themselves. As I've said, I LOVE making lists, the more detailed the better. This means that when I make a goal to read more, I can't resist adding onto it until I have a goal to read exactly 2.3 books every week until I die. It's fun, but most of the time I get overwhelmed by trying to reach my super-special specific goal that I lose the spirit of the original one, and give up altogether. So this year, I'm not going to take away the fun of making those specific plans, but I am going to keep the original goals, and those plans will be the ones that really matter.

Finally, I've been thinking about the date of "resolutions", New Year's Eve and Day. Since I'm now making a no-pressure list for a better life, why wait for an arbitrary date to start making improvements? So, in the spirit of an unconventional resolution list, I'm going to start today!

Pod People!

I think one of my New Year's resolutions will be to read more. I love books so much, but I think school, TV, and definitely the Internet has severely cut into my reading time this year. I haven't decided yet if I want to set a book goal, maybe for each month, but I've already started working on my 'books I have read' list. Last night I started Brave New World.

I'm only at the fourth chapter so far, but I'm already loving everything about this book. It's based on a future where humans are grown and socialized until adulthood in a lab, before becoming pre-determined cogs in the wheel of society. I think the most amazing thing about this book is that it was written in the '30s. Who could have imagined such a scientifically detailed picture of the future and genetic engineering? Aldous Huxley, apparently. I'll save my final opinion until I finish the book, but if the beginning is any indication this will soon become one of my favorites.