New Beginnings
To state the obvious, I’m not the only one who has spent more than a few minutes over the last couple of weeks attempting to state clearly the New Year’s Resolutions™ I’m thinking now that I’ll fail to live up to this year. (How can one fall short of a goal that one hasn’t defined?) One of my big resolutions is to rejuvenate this blog a bit. I’ve begun with a relatively easy step of adding a section listing the books I’m planning to read. (See that new link in the nav bar up at the top?) That beginning was easy, since I’d already made plans to read those particular books; the more difficult tasks of reading these books and then continuing the practice of listing and reading books from month to month remain to be done. A related goal is to find some time to backfill that section with readings from previous months.
More broadly, I’m determined to bring my writing – virtually all of which is in journaling form – into public view. I’ve long suffered from an almost terminal case of perfectionism, refusing to let anything I write appear in front of another person’s eyes unless I was absolutely forced to do that. Brené Brown suggests that “one of the most effective ways to start recovering from perfectionism is to start creating.” Perhaps. My initial response upon reading that was to say that it seems to miss the weight of the problem – it’s the perfectionism that’s long been in the way of my creative efforts. But, then, I remind myself, I named this blog thinking out loud in large part to trick myself into moving out from under the weight of the perfectionist burden. So, here I am again, trying yet again.
Other resolutions, while still unbroken (hey – it’s early in the year!), are also unfulfilled. I’ll be writing about these resolutions over the next few days and weeks (yes, I’m leaving myself some wiggle room there), but they’re generally oriented toward discovering and living a more meaningful life in retirement.