I don’t believe in having just one New Year’s Resolution anymore. I’d rather have a bunch. That way, I do okay on a bunch of goals — improve at a bunch of stuff I want to see happen. I’d rather do okay at 33 goals than execute perfectly at one. 

I’m going to post my 2017 resolutions tomorrow, but I don’t think there will more than a dozen or two. A big part will have to do with losing weight and my theories on weight loss. (And I do have theories.)

 

Happy last day of 2016!

PAUL MARTIN REPORT CARD ON 2016 NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS

Resolution #1: Stop procrastinating, especially when it comes to writing and posting.

  • Effort: B
  • Achievement: C
  • Comments: Writing is one of the easiest things to procrastinate. More than all the other things I procrastinate. 

Resolution #2: Not think of my kids too much

  • Effort: A
  • Achievement: D
  • Comments: I’ve said it before and will say it again: Younger children don’t let you sleep, older children don’t let you rest. Trust me, it’s New Year’s Eve and all three will be at different…events. I will think about them. 

Resolution #3: Become a better parent.

  • Effort: B
  • Achievement: C
  • Comments: I’ve become better in that I’m learning to let go, let them fail, not infantilize them.

Resolution #4: Study Jesus

  • Effort: D-
  • Achievement: D-
  • Comments: Been in a bit of a spiritual valley. It’s been hard. Keep reading everything else. 

Resolution #5: Get a better grasp of Islam

  • Effort: B
  • Achievement: A
  • Comments: That time I had to admit that I had become a better student of Islam than Jesus. Please don’t judge me. It’s just remarkable to me how little I knew about Islam, how it was founded on social justice, and is nothing like what you hear people talk about. It’s not “a violent religion.”

Resolution #6: Become more decisive.

  • Effort: A
  • Achievement: A
  • Comments: It’s been so liberating. Helped me a lot in deciding to post things that are half finished.

Resolution #7: Become much better writer.

  • Effort: B
  • Achievement: C
  • Comments: It’s usually hard work. Free writing has helped. I’m continuing to study the writings of famous writers on how to write. 

Resolution #8: Try to finally figure out love.

  • Effort: C
  • Achievement: F
  • Comments: More certain that the deeper you try and understand love, the less you know. I read a book on love by Alain De Button.

Resolution #9: Not care what intellectuals think about my writing because the audience I’m trying to reach is everyday normal people, not academics.

  • Effort: A
  • Achievement: B
  • Comments: I still care more than I’d like to admit. I love to win the approval of people smarter than me.

Resolution #10: Be more vulnerable with my emotions even if this includes crying.

  • Effort: A
  • Achievement: B
  • Comments: I’m afraid of showing my emotions with people outside of my immediate family.

Resolution #11: Write more honestly about what I truly think and feel without fear of what people will think, especially my Evangelical Christian friends.

  • Effort: B
  • Achievement: C
  • Comments: As I think about it, I really held back. I don’t think Christians are ready to know what my honest thoughts are. Not sure what to do with these thoughts. Maybe they aren’t for public consumption.

Resolution #12: Learn Arabic and improve my Spanish and French.

  • Effort: D-
  • Achievement: D-
  • Comments: Have learned a few Arabic words through study of Islam but have done natha avec my Spanish and French.

Resolution #13: Resume my commitment to memorizing large portions of text: quotation, book excerpts, parts of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights.

  • Effort: skip
  • Achievement: skip
  • Comments: Does bringing out my copy of the US Constitution during the Democratic convention count?

Resolution #14: Study the Ottoman Empire

  • Effort: B
  • Achievement: B+
  • Comments: So helpful in understanding the geopolitical issues in the middle east. Essential.

Resolution #15: Replace 10 pounds of fat with 10 pounds of muscle.

  • Effort: C
  • Achievement: D
  • Comments: Positive I’ve replaced 5 pounds of muscle with 10 pounds of fat.

Resolution #16: Punish my body in the hottest yoga studios and on the steepest hills.

  • Effort: C
  • Achievement: D
  • Comments: This WILL change very soon.

Resolution #17: Listen better.

  • Effort: D
  • Achievement: D
  • Comments: This is the one I want to improve on the most. Hard to listen when you’re an INTP — when your mind is always thinking.

Resolution #18: Begin video posts even though I don’t have the technology to make them professional.

  • Effort: B
  • Achievement: A
  • Comments: More to come.

Resolution #19: Become less tolerant of bigotry, prejudice and xenophobia, especially when I see it in people who claim to be Christian.

  • Effort: A
  • Achievement: A
  • Comments: This one has come with a price. Mostly from other Christians who think it’s “mean” to stand up  a defend the rights of minorities. Realizing so many good people just don’t think it’s that big of a problem. Realizing so many pastors can’t talk about these issues in church because the stakeholders are all Republicans.

Resolution #20: Launch The Christian Muslim Alliance to help (Christians especially) love and understand each other.

  • Effort: A
  • Achievement: A
  • Comments: Just too much to write, and so much happening. Follow us on soical media !

Resolution #21: Spend more time helping the homeless.

  • Effort: A
  • Achievement: A
  • Comments: More difficult now since I’m not working with the agency.

Resolution #22: Be more of a giver and less of a taker.

  • Effort: C
  • Achievement: C
  • Comments: I try. It’s hard. I’m so self-centered.

Resolution #23: Learn to be selfish because caring for myself isn’t easy.

  • Effort: B
  • Achievement: C
  • Comments: Having to unlearn a lot of guilt-producing nonsense learned in church. If you could patent guilt and shame, imagine!

Resolution #24: Become politically active in the 2016 presidential election.

  • Effort: B
  • Achievement: D
  • Comments: I did. I will continue to speak up against any form of xenophobia and bigotry.

Resolution #25: Attend synagogue with Elliot.

  • Effort: C
  • Achievement: F
  • Comments: Met with Jewish friend. Have the time and place. Just need to get there. He still wants to.

Resolution #26: Attend mosque.

  • Effort: A
  • Achievement: A
  • Comments: The Muslims were so welcoming and warm it was startling. I feel God there.

Resolution #27: Spend 10 days somewhere on the Italian coast this summer, alone, writing.

  • Effort: C
  • Achievement: F
  • Comments: Next year.

Resolution #28: Be kinder to myself.

  • Effort: C
  • Achievement: C
  • Comments: Hard one.

Resolution #29: Better my understanding of US history. 

  • Effort: B
  • Achievement: C
  • Comments: Reading Made In America by Bill Bryson again. Read through the US Constitution and Bill of Rights three times.

Resolution #30: Laugh more.

  • Effort: C
  • Achievement: C
  • Comments: At myself, mostly.

Resolution #31: Become more of who I am and less of want society seems to want me to be.

  • Effort: B
  • Achievement: B
  • Comments: This one’s going to take a while because I’ve spent decades trying to please everyone else. Trying to please everyone is in my hard wiring.

Resolution #32: Deepen pop culture understanding.

  • Effort: C
  • Achievement:
  • Comments: I think I could tell the difference between Rihanna and Beyonce now. And I’ve added Chance The Rapper and Kanye to my playlist.

Resolution #33: Learn to live with clutter and disorder in 2016. Just surrender to it. Acceptance. All that yoga 12 step mindfulness stuff.

  • Effort: F
  • Achievement: F
  • Comments: Teaser…one of my 2017 will include mastering organization and defeating all clutter because I failed at trying to live with it.

Stay tuned. 🙂