Why is this string on my finger?

Look at that: a new year.  It's beginning to be that you can almost come to expect them like clockwork.  The nice thing about a new year is that nothing gives people a quick burst of gumption like an artificial delineation between The Past and The Future.  I believe that in some circles it's referred to as the Clean Slate Theory.  Which of course brings us to resolutions, which is a non-threatening way of saying 'goals'.

I haven't come up with mine yet, but that's partially because i've been distrac- busy, and partially because i want to come up with meaningful ones that i can complete (and which stay kept), if only for novelty's sake.  And that's the crux of them, isn't it?  As anyone who's come up with good ones knows, it isn't as simple a task as we were led to believe as children.  They need to be specific enough to be meaningful, yet have enough looseness of wording that you have a bit of slack.  For starters, unless it's 'breathe', i don't recommend you have a daily resolution.  Even weekly ones are dangerous unless they're dead simple.  This one i learned first-hand, and i'm going to have to make some changes to my logs as mondays have been coming up a bit too quickly as of late.

I haven't stamped the list official yet, but i'm going to go with more seasonal than yearly ones this time around.  Giving me a whole year to do something is just a bad idea.  I might as well just call it a December '09 resolution.  I may have monthly and even weekly ones as well, but that granularity would mainly be to help keep me honest.  Of course, some of you reading this didn't get caught off guard by the new year and have already come up with yours, and to you i say 'la tee da'.  The rest of us are going to put some thought into this and be ready to go by the eleventh.

everyone is ready for the future;
it's the present that gives us difficulties.  
   :: michael malley