Late nights, being tired, especially recently, have really been getting to me for some reason. Even if I’m tired, I’ll start thinking about something and get really worked up about it, in my own head, that I stop thinking I’m tired. Which makes me more tired and lets it get to me more.

What I really need right now is someone to talk with. Not talk to. Talk with. I like to think, to form opinions and ideas about things, both happy and not, to try and understand them. People I know, friends, they’re willing to listen to me if I need that. I appreciate that a lot actually. As I grow older, I feel like the amount people talk grows less and less. More friends, but less dialogue. The people I know, if I talk to them, they will be there to listen. Listen, not engage me, just listen. I will talk at length on something that engages me and they will simply absorb. If I am excited, they will listen amusingly. If I’m angry, they will listen sympathetically. When they need to talk, they expect the same behavior, that I will let them talk about their own problems and opinions without expecting me to offer any in return. 

Since when, though, did people become so passive? It’s not even a malicious or intentionally ill behavior, its usually (as far as I can tell) laziness. They don’t want to think so much about it. They don’t take the information around them and try to draw their own conclusions, but simply listen to what others think.

What happened to the days, or is it the people, when we were younger and we inherently knew that we didn’t know everything. We looked at the world, saw and experienced a lot of things that we didn’t understand, and tried to figure it out. Sure, stupid conclusions and lots of wasted time might happen, but those moments, like late night talks as an underclassman, were moments of intellectual magic. Sleep deprived, yes, but engaging. Learning about what happened to others, what people think of what happened to you. People, peers, trying to make sense of the world around them under a misguided belief that they could understand how everything works.

Now, people around me (both old and young), seem to see the parts of the world they haven’t figured out, shrug their shoulders and turn away. No real desire to challenge what they knew of the world and understand why it was the way it was. Anyone else’s differing opinion simply dismissed or denied. Social interactions, the way people thought, the way things worked. No one I know is interested in that stuff any more. No one I know is interesting any more. When did everyone choose to become stupid?

Of course this is an over-generalization. Its just a personal trend I think I see. I may be imagining it. But when it comes down to it, on some level, I care about these things. I care about thinking about these things even if it is stupid. I like to figure things out. Do other people?

Or do they respond with “Thats just the way things are”? Do they respond with “I don’t really want to think about it”? Do they respond with “I don’t care”?

I could really use someone that I can talk with right now. 

Soooo this is perhaps a month late. But in a way, I kept delaying it to make sure that I actually acted upon my new years resolution instead of making a statement on day of and then letting it fall to the wayside.

I realized this year that one of the main problems with new years resolutions is that are very specific. I am going to lose weight, or eat less, or get good grades etc. While its good to have a specific target, I can’t help but feel like they are simply doomed to fail because the run into one major obstacle. Reality. Reality is what gives you midterms when you should be going to the gym. Reality is what gives you a ridiculously hard class when you’re trying to do your best. Once you hit reality and, despite your efforts, you can’t overcome it sufficiently, your inability to achieve your goal causes you to simply give up on your new years resolution. Resolutions become doomed to fail because there is no measurement of success, simply success or failure, black or white. Reality doesn’t do well with extremes, it gives you shades of grey. If your resolution can’t be defined in those shades of grey, it can’t succeed.

The other major problem with resolutions, I feel, is that they are uninspiring. They’re not creative, they’re not motivating. They are boring. Yes I would like to cook more but ughhh cooking equals buying groceries and prep and pans and shit. The reward of the resolution is to do that all again the next day or so. For most goals, they are just a reminder of how much more work you need to do to simply achieve a relatively uninspiring conclusion. What does cooking more end up doing for you? Maybe save a little money but not necessarily any self improvement. Working out more may get you more in shape, but then that just makes you afraid to lose it if you stop. To successfully maintain a new years resolution, it must be something that you can strive for. Not just something you want, but something you know will be a worthwhile goal because, by fulfilling your resolution, it says something about you and who you are.

My new years resolution this year is to follow through. I think it is not super specific, so it is a resolution that I can strive for that improves me as a whole, can be applied to a variety of situations both big and small, and simply failing at one thing does not negate my whole resolution. At the same time, the scope of the resolution and what it means not only gives me a small superficial benefit but also an improvement on my personality.

I have a tendency to make plans. To want things, say I’m going to do them and only go halfway. Not because I don’t want them anymore, but because I get lazy or bored or distracted. Things like, cooking, working out, doing well in school are all part of the scope of the resolution. These goals, however, I know I can achieve through my own efforts so they are not something that I really need to “strive” to achieve. Its my personal lack of effort that stands in the way of me getting what I am able to achieve. 

So far, it feels like I’ve been implementing my new years resolution. I’ve started to gym regularly (4-5x a week). I’ve been staying on top of my coursework. I’ve been cooking a decent amount for the apartment. I’ve gotten a research project with a professor in the MAE department. I’ve regularly cleaned my room and slowly cleaning the house. I’ve organized and kept track of my personal finances. I organized (with much help from Lisa) a snowboarding trip, that despite problems and a severe lack of support, ended up being considered extremely successful by the people who attended the trip.

At the same time, the resolution has helped me mature a bit in my decision making process. One of the main issues is that what I want to do or achieve is often too unrealistic or the sheer number of different things I want to pursue do not fit with my schedule. As a result, a lot of different objectives only get a portion of the effort needed to complete them. By deciding to follow through with my plans, I’ve made better decisions of what is important to me, what is a priority and what I should focus on. Those that are not quite as important to me, the things I want that I know I can’t really achieve, I don’t do any more because I have a good feeling that I can’t dedicate the time needed for it. 

My life has been, so far, feeling shitty. A lot of problems in the recent time have kept popping up. This new resolution, however, has mitigated a lot of the effect of those problems. It has kept me motivated to keep working hard towards my goals. Looking at that list, I’ve achieved a lot of things I wanted. And that’s only a month so far. If I am able to keep this up, I might be able to actually accomplish a lot this year. I will not only have all those individual goals fulfilled, but also the knowledge that I was able to turn wanting and thinking into doing.