2010: Personal
I never cared for these “New Year’s resolutions”, but I do make plans and usually stick to them, so I thought I’d list what I plan to do in 2010. You’ll find that my list is made up of very simple things and that none of them could be considered achievements by the vast majority people, but I know my interests, my limits and the situation I’m in. I will list things I know I can do, unlike most other people who usually get carried away with their “resolutions”, saying things that are too ambitious, beyond their abilities or simply go against their personality, which is just why they hardly ever achieve them.
This post will, however, contain two lists. The first one will be made up of goals I’m quite certain I can reach, while the second one will be slightly more ambitious. No list will contain any goals that are too unlikely, but at least a part of the second one will likely be a little beyond my reach, so I’ll acknowledge that by saying that reaching any of the goals on that list is entirely optional.
That said, here’s the first list. In no particular order, what I plan to do in 2010 is:
– Continue to go out at least once per week, as I’ve been doing for over two and a half years.
– Stick to this little daily exercise routine of mine, as I have for the past four years.
– Earn and redeem at least 15000 butterfly credits on Care2, in order to take advantage of their new system and make myself a tiny bit more useful. (If the value of a credit will change significantly, the goal will also be adjusted accordingly.)
– Continue to follow the rules I have set for myself when I started this blog, namely to post something on at least two different days of each week, have the posts filed under Personal and Tests & Surveys make up less than half of the total number of posts at all times and have the Society category contain more than half the number of posts contained by the Personal category at all times.
– Keep backing up my important files monthly, as I started to do after the last HDD failure.
– Continue to have more legally purchased software than “pirated” software installed on my computer at any one moment, as has been the case at least since I bought this computer.
– Read The Blood Knight in January, since I decided to stop after a few pages and wait a while longer after purchasing it, then read at least five more books, none of them translated into Romanian, by the end of the year.
– Finish Planescape: Torment, which I’m currently playing, in January, then play at least five other games by the end of the year, at least one of them having been released in 2008 or later. (By “play” I normally mean “play and finish”, but it will also count if I’ll give up on a game shortly before the end, as I did with Final Fantasy VIII.)
– Submit ratings on MobyGames for all the games already on my “Games Played” list on IGN and continue to submit ratings on both sites for any new additions.
– Fulfill my pledge to Global Population Speak Out by writing at least one blog post about overpopulation and sending messages regarding the movement to at least a few newspapers during the month of February.
And now on to the second list, which you’ll notice consists of additions to the goals listed in the first one. The order is the same as on the first list, to make it easier to follow. What I will attempt to do in 2010, if conditions would be favorable enough and my mood good enough to take advantage of them, is:
– After increasing the difficulty of one of the three types of exercise that make up my little daily routine in 2009, increase the difficulty of at least one of the other two by the end of the year and don’t go back.
– Earn and redeem at least 25000, or even 30000, butterfly credits on Care2. (Again, if the value of a credit will change significantly, the goal will also be adjusted accordingly.)
– Have the number of non-personal posts exceed the number of personal posts, which are those from the “Personal” and “Tests & Surveys” categories, by at least 25 by the end of the year.
– Despite the fact that it’s still a laughable goal compared to how much I was reading while living with Andra, it would be a huge step forward if I could manage to obtain and read at least ten, and preferably at least 12, books, including The Blood Knight.
– Play at least three games released in 2005 or later, at least two of them being released in 2007 or later, but also get rid of at least two of the games kits that are currently on my computer, either by playing them or by deciding that I’ll never want to play them and is therefore pointless to continue keeping them.
– Write reviews on MobyGames, which I could then also copy to IGN and perhaps a few other sites, for at least ten of the games that I have played, at least five of them being for games that I have played in 2009 or earlier.
– Rise noticeably above the level of “armchair activist”, mainly by getting even more involved on-line when it comes to the causes I care about, but also by participating in at least one actual protest regarding an issue that I care about.
These lists are not exhaustive, but they contain what I could think of right now. They do not contain any goals that would also require the full cooperation of others, since that’s out of my hands. As I said, they contain things that the vast majority of people would never consider to be achievements, but they’re my lists…
I could have added a third list, containing my hopes and dreams, but decided against it since those haven’t changed and aren’t going to change, so it’ll serve no real purpose to write them again in this post.
Otherwise, I wish all of you the same things I wish for myself: May all your wishes come true as long as that won’t cause unjustified harm to others or to the world as a whole, and may your worst years be in your past, the one that’s just ending eventually proving to have been worse than any of the ones that’ll follow it.
