Wrapping Up the Old Year

Was just cleaning out my desk and I found my list of resolutions for this past year that I had made at the beginning of the year.

Obviously I had forgotten about them or else I woudn't have "stumbled" across them.  I counted out how many I had done and I came up with 1 out of 18.  I'm sitting here thinking about whether or not I should be depressed by that.

One for eighteen is pretty terrible.  But that one was pay off my credit card, so it carried more weight than others.  The others were more personal, ie draw more, paint more, get back into photography, etc etc.  I accomplished none of that.  I thought about what I had done this past year and it was the same.  I hung out with my friends, occasionally golfed and surfed, and then in June I got a new job which led to a lot less golfing and surfing.  Was that enough to call last year a good year?

I decided to not be depressed about only finishing one of my resolutions.  Mainly because there was things I did that I didn't have on my resolutions list, such as find a job that could potentially become a career, that were of more importance than finishing two paintings.

I also feel I grew as a person tremendously.  I learned how to take a risk, and I learned what it meant to completely fail at something.  And while I kick myself somedays for that failure, I learned from it.  I once read that you learn more from your failures than your successes.  I'm slowly realizing how true that is.  Every experience will help me at some point later on down the line.  I'm also learning not to dwell on mistakes because it distracts you from what's in front of you.  You'll never see whats coming down the road if you always look at where you just were.

So all in all, 2008 was a good year.  Grew as a person, got a good job.  However, looking at the resolutions made me realize how fast time is starting to go.  I've been working so much that there is not enough time on the weekends to hang out with my friends, relax, and do all those things on my resolutions list.  And that made me a little sad.  I feel like we never have enough time to do ALL the things we enjoy.  Life is a weird thing, it gets in the way, but at the same time it just runs on by.

Anyways, I decided that I'm going to make another list of resolutions, but I'm going assign values to each one.  For instance, improving my backside surfing will be more important than getting back into photography, and trying to break 100 in golf is more important that painting a picture.  But at the very top will be to make sure I become a better person.  Thats kind of a cheat resolution because it encompasses so many things, but in the end isn't that what a resolution is?  All you really want is to feel that you improved yourself in some manner so that it doesn't seem like all you're doing is just taking up space.