Out With the Old...

I turned 30 this year.  Apparently, it’s a big milestone birthday.  I say apparently because I didn’t really think all that much of it, but everyone around me kept making a big deal about it.  “Oh, that’s a big one- how are you going to celebrate?” and “You need to really have fun on your big day; birthdays mean less and less as you get older” and “It’s a natural time to pause and reflect on your life thus far, don’t fight it” and still other unwarranted words of wisdom I don’t remember or have chosen to forget.  There was always encouragement to overindulge in introspection and contemplation and I had to fight pretty hard to stay out of that hole.

Because I’m disturbingly introspective as is- I don’t need anyone encouraging it.  And the single greatest struggle of my life has been to take myself less seriously.  Reading back on old journals I’ve kept shows me that I’ve made A LOT of progress in this area.  But momentary reflection on my thoughts on most given days proves that I’ve still got a LONG way to go.

So towards that end, I’m not going to take this evening to self reflect.  I’m not going to list off my goals for the year and recount each success or (more often) each failure.  I’m not going to overindulge in self-flagellation and give myself still more opportunities for such by making yet another list of goals for the next year.  It’s just not productive.

I know what I’ve done and what I haven’t done.  I know what I did too much and what I need to do more.  And yes, I have some goals for the coming year.  But I’m not going to publish them here- because I think that’s a prime example of what I’d like to do less.  No, I’m going to keep them for myself.

And I will try very hard to keep this space for the things that may actually be useful to others like fiction pieces and book reviews and utilitarian insights I’ve learned the hard way.  And I suppose that’s the rub- because even in my attempt not to make any resolutions, I’ve made one.

Happy New Year.