1. Eat better: Especially towards the end of the semester, my eating habits regressed to those of a typical college student, and I have suffered for it. While I am not yet fully convinced by the science behind the evolutionary (I think the term "paleo" should be avoided here) diets that are becoming increasingly popular with Objectivists these days, I do want to implement an evolutionary-lite diet, heavy in meat and vegetables and low in carbs, particularly grains. Eventually, I want to sit down with the relevant journals and really explore the science of this issue, but I just don't have time right now and am not convinced by the layman's arguments I've seen so far.
2. Honor commitments to self and others: I've been really bad recently about keeping the promises I've made, especially when they come with an attached deadline. Whether it's homework assignments, a promise to make a blog post on a certain day, a promise to arrive by a certain time, or a promise to myself to read an interesting article, I've lacked consistency in following through on time, if at all. This seriously needs to change, and I'm going to work hard to not make commitments I may not keep and to keep the commitments I do make.
3. Remove "god", "jesus", etc. from my regular vocabulary: This one isn't a big deal, but I'd like to stop saying "god damn it" in anger or "jesus!" in shock or the like. There have to be better ways of communicating, and at the very least this will give me some needed practice in implementing standing orders.
4. Establish a routine including writing in my journal, blogging, podcasting (first one is in the works!), studying, keeping organized, etc: I've definitely let myself slip with regards to routine. I need to set up times that I will dedicate to doing the things that I want to do on a recurring basis. I'm not sure how regularly I want to do everything yet, but I want to make sure I actually aim for regularity.
5. Work on identifying the causes of and fixes for emotional loops: I sometimes get caught in these loops where I get swamped by a particular emotion (anger, sadness, frustration, etc.) and occasionally spend hours looping the issue in my head before I finally break out. If/when it happens in the future, I want to work hard on figuring out why they start and how to break out of them when they happen (I can usually identify early on that I'm looping, or "grinding" as Alyssa calls it, but I can't stop easily).
6. Manage money better: Through a combination of luck (my parents pay for college tuition, books, clothes, transportation to see them, and give me a monthly allowance, I got a sizeable inheritance from my grandmother, etc.) and hard work (I tutored throughout high school, I got a full-time job this summer instead of vacationing, etc.) I have significant disposable assets for a college student. Unfortunately, I haven't been very good about keeping track of my money, and have recently been spending more than I've been making. I want to stop my needless spending, start shopping around rather than buying the first thing I see, and start working on saving for the future (I want to be financially independent of my parents as soon as possible).
7. Plan more surprises for Alyssa: I consider myself a bit of a romantic and love to leave little surprises to let Alyssa know I'm thinking of her, but since we've moved in together this has kind of dried up. I want to start making a conscious effort to keep that spark going.
8. Start journal-reading habits: In pretty much every path I can see my life taking, the regular reading of scientific journals will be an important factor. I want to get into the habit now for a few reasons: It may take a while to figure out which journals I actually care to read, my courses are getting closer to the cutting-edge and much of the material comes directly from live issues in the literature, it will allow me to trace scientific issues to their roots inductively by following chains of citations and reading the important experiments as they happened, and I want to start getting ideas for real projects I can work on once I'm done with school.
9. Devote time to personal projects: I want to make sure I do the things that aren't immediately related to my schoolwork (learning Arabic, writing hobby computer programs, etc.) I've let schoolwork become my whole life to a large extent, and it's made things quite boring.
10. Attempt to find/connect with local Objectivists: Whether they're actually at the U of R or just in surrounding areas, there must be other Objectivists in the Rochester area. I want to find out who they are and hopefully start a meetup type thing to discuss ideas.
11. Work on handwriting: My handwriting is absolutely atrocious, and I've just accepted it as an unchangeable part of my character for too long. I want to spend the semester trying to write neater whenever I'm writing, and then possibly over the summer meet with a specialist to get it legible.
12. Remember why I care about my work: This last semester, I lost sight of why I actually cared about the classes I was taking and the work I was doing, and it resulted in lack of motivation, poor allotment of time to my various commitments, and frequent stretches of time where my entire life was spent doing work without any joy. I want to get to the point where "why" is always in the back of my mind, ready to be called into focus whenever I need to remind myself.
13. Return to regular sleep schedule: For about 3 years, I woke up at 5 am without fail (unless I had to wake up earlier to catch a flight or something). Having that regular wakeup provided me with a reliable period of time to start my day and forced my sleep schedule to stay fairly regular (If I got to bed at 3 am one night and made myself wake up at 5 the next day, it wouldn't be very long until I was back to my regular 10ish bedtime). This slipped away from me halfway through spring semester last year, and I want to get myself back on track with that.
14. Take the OAC more seriously: The ability to listen to lectures at my convenience combined with some of the other issues I've discussed above has lead to a less-than-desirable participation in the OAC. Considering that this may be more important than any of my U of R classes, I really need to (and want to, I truly enjoy the lectures) step it up.
15. Find some regular physical activity to engage in: In high school, I played ultimate frisbee every Friday (at least) after school (weather no obstacle) and was on the volleyball team. I would also often just step outside and go for a jog around the neighborhood. Since arriving at college, all of this has stopped completely. While there are certainly physical health issues motivating this resolution, I really want to do this because it would be a nice break from my largely intellectual life to have an activity that is mostly physical in nature.
Here's to a great twenty-ten! How have you resolved to make this year great?
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