Being said, I will do the same.

I'm setting out five resolutions this year. Some are the same as everyone else's, but all are intensely personal to me. They are part of a transformational process. Not all five may happen this year, but I hope to make genuine progress.

• Watch less TV

  This is a hard one for me. Television is like crack – you get a little, and all of the sudden you're craving more and more. What sucks more is that I was looking forward to the premier of the "Battlestar Galactica" miniseries premier on SciFi, and I still think I'll be watching it.

  What gets me most is that we pay over ninety dollars a month for our satellite service thanks to having all the pay channels. What is wrong with us? We really have to figure out which channels we want and stick with those.

  But all in all? I spend too much time in front of the tube, sinking my life into it and having nothing to show for it. Sure, it's vegetation at its finest, but is that the best I can offer myself? It's time that changes.

• Write more often
  

  Almost every day, I have something on my mind to write about. I compose, think of angles to write about... but I never follow through.

  Partly, it's because at work all day I sit at a computer – that happens when you write software for a living. Sometimes when I get home I want to vegetate, but instead I should be doing something productive that meets my goals. One of those goals are self-expression, writing here, or at my own site when I get the code written to allow for it.

  Thus, I have set for myself the goal of writing four entries a week. Yes, four a week - that works out to 208 entries for the year, which is considerably more than I have total as of this writing. I think it's a plausible goal.

  Part of that is that I need to update this template. It's old; it's the one I used in 1999, fergadzakes. That memory stick image on the sidebar? I pulled some of the SDRAM out of my old 400 MHz Pentium 2 and scanned it. Old school. I need something more modern, just for my own edification.

• Size loss

  Most folks aim for weight loss in their New Year's resolutions, but I am going to take a new take on this and state the size I want to be.

  Why? Because usually we want to be a certain size. Weight is a number, but if I lose down to the size I want, it's something I can feel, people can see and I'll feel good about. (It also helps that the scales in the house can't weigh me – have I mentioned I need to lose a goodly bit of weight?)

  Currently, I wear 4x shirts. It is my goal in this calendar year to reduce until I can wear 2x shirts comfortably and without embarrassment (stretched across my bloated body). I want to be able to get some of the cool T-shirts discussed at places like Preshrunk and proclaim my geekiness without shame.

• Build things!

  I'm an INTP. We're the architects; we love to build things. As I've lamented oh-so-many times, I don't build enough stuff.

  Well, I take that back. I build things at work all the time, I just don't really care about most of them. They're interesting enough, often-times, but not very satisfying. All my life I've been a builder, and when all else fails creating something new out of mere thoughts and logic is what makes me truly, genuinely happy. The only trick is, it needs to be new stuff.

  This means I need to write more software. I need to build my sites. I need to make utilities and applications and get them out in the hands of folks. It's what I do, it's something I believe I am meant to do.

  Also, I am 34 now. In terms of software development, I am old, at least by standards of hiring managers. Couple this with stories I keep hearing about where if you spend too long at one employer then small, agile companies consider you a "dud", and I am starting to think that as soon as I get vested at work (April 9, 2006, bay-bee!), I should consider finding greener pastures.

  To do that, though, I have to show what I've got. I have sixteen months to get some stuff together. Also, getting my web presence together will help me with my writing.

• Do something with my beliefs

  I've mentioned before that I am unhappy with how I have approached paganism. I haven't done anything with it, I don't practice and I don't build my everyday life around it. I need to make changes to properly incorporate it into my life.

  I know that I am not a wiccan; the overly feminine energy of it doesn't jibe with me, and the wiccans I have known (eclectic and otherwise) are either too fluff or deep-end new-age for me. I feel a kinship with the principles of shamanism, so perhaps I should investigate this more fully. Added to that, there is the branch of technoshamanism, which I don't know nearly enough about but I feel could be where my beliefs lay...

  Sometimes I feel like I need a guide on this path, but at the same time, I know that I do not have room in my life for that level of devotion. I feel like there is still quite a bit of work I need to do within myself and questions I need to grapple with first, as well as some reading and study.

  But this is why it's called a path, correct? I just need to make more progress so I don't feel like a poseur. Writing will help me lay this out in better detail so I can find my direction.

So, like everybody else's lists, mine is about self-improvement and goals, which adds up to one big snoozer of an entry. I'll be happy if I achieve even two of them, but I would be thrilled if I could do all five. I guess time will tell.

restlessmind