The New Year Cometh

It's the beginning of 2006. And as such, a time to reflect on the last year and look forward to the next...

I don't make New Year's resolutions. I don't because I believe that if you want to do something to improve yourself, you should just resolve to do it, whenever that may be. People make all sorts of resolutions at the New Year, only to have them fail before then end of January. Why is that? It just becomes expected and cliche. Losing weight, learning a new language, eating better, exercise, blah blah blah. It's trite.

There were a few things that I had decided to do this year long before New Year's Eve:

- I am going to run a half marathon with LS (who convinced me by saying, "come on, it's only 13 miles!" which I somehow thought was reasonable). As a prelude to this, we are going to run a marathon as part of a 4 person relay team (so 6.5 miles).

- I will re-learn to speak French (not that I was any good at it to begin with). I began this last year and will continue on this year.

- I am going to start climbing again and get as many people as possible to join me.

- I will become comfortable enough riding a motorcycle and try to save enough to purchase one.

These are things that I thought of as general things I want to do. It doesn't necessarily matter if they are accomplished within the timeframe of this year. As with everything, actions which promote self-improvement, whether successful or not, always further the mind and the spirit... boy, talk about cliche.