As is my tradition during Januarys (Januaries?), I try to come up with New Years Resolutions to follow through on in hopes that I grow and become a better, more evolved human being.
It doesn’t always work, but the important thing is that **I TRY.**
So, after spending (literally) a few minutes thinking about how I want to improve myself this year, I came up with the following resolutions:
Say “No” more often: You ever feel like you try to do too much? I feel like that a lot these days….and the majority of it has to do with my inability to say “no” to people; different friends will invite me to hang out with them at the same time and I find myself saying “yes” to them regardless of the scheduling conflict. It’s what causes me to leave early and arrive late.
Make more plans: This is the other effort I’m making to manage my free time better. By organizing my own get-togethers, I can invite whoever I want
Take a summer vacation (for real this time): I broke this resolution last year, but I intend to keep it in 2011. Not sure where I’m going yet, but……….hoping to see my friend, Amos, in Europe!
Take the GRE: Not sure if I ever mentioned this before (too lazy to look back in my Blog archives right now), but I made a plan to go back to school before I hit 30. It’s a slow process as Grad School isn’t cheap and I’ve only started saving since last year (2010). The cost of tuition alone is very discouraging. But they say to take things one step at a time, so that’s what I’m going to do starting at the beginning. And that first step? Take the GRE (and get a good score).
So there you have it, folks – my New Year’s resolutions for 2011. It’s not the traditional kind that most people do, but I think keeping them specific is what helps you achieve them.
DO YOU HAVE ANY NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS??
As most of you know, I’m a big fan of swing – the lindy hop in particular.
In fact, as soon as I got a car (which I’m forever grateful for, Nico) I drove on down, took me some free lessons and learned me to dance.
And I like to think that I’ve gotten pretty decent at it after five years.
But I recently joined this lindy hop dance practice group to basically become a better dancer. The people in this group are all really good dancers….and they’re constantly critiquing my form.
I understand why they’re doing this. See, everyone in the group takes this advanced class at the Lindygroove (where I go to dance) except me. Why? Because you have to *audition* to get into the advanced class. The instructors there like your form to be a certain way because it helps you learn what they teach you, I guess….
Everyone in the group wants me in the class because we tend to go over a lot of the stuff they learn there. And I actually did try out for it (the class) a few years back……..but didn’t get in. That was a harsh blow to the ole’ self-confidence, I tell ya. For a while afterwards, I focused a lot on making sure I was doing everything as I should’ve been….and it actually made me worse.
Eventually, though, I shook it off because I realized that this course of action didn’t make any sense. At that point, I knew I was a pretty good dancer - maybe not up to their standards, but decent enough. So why put myself through all the criticism and self-consciousness of getting someone else’s approval?? The whole point of lindy hop (or any hobby really) is to have fun. And I felt that if I did end up taking the class, I’d be more worried about where I was stepping or correcting my posture than anything else.
And that’s kind of how I still feel about trying out for that class.
I’ve heard a lot of people argue the opposite though: if you really like something, you’ll strive to improve at it because that’ll make it more fun….and I guess that’s the logic that I’m subscribing to at the moment.
