Be It Resolved

Well, it's that time of year again.  Like many people, I spend a lot of time over Christmas holidays making lists - sometimes only mentally, sometimes not - of the ways I would like to improve myself in the new year.  I actually sat down the other day and made a list of what I thought was supposed to be New Year`s Resolutions, things that I wanted to accomplish in 2013.  I wound up with 25 items, two of which have sub-lists of 3 items apiece.  This list includes such gems as `Get a haircut', 'Check calcium levels', and 'Go to the dentist'.  Finally, I came to my senses and labelled it 'New Year's To Do List'.

I'm not sure why I was making a list of resolutions in the first place.  In the last few years, I have had pretty reasonable success with my policy of eschewing resolutions in favour of inclinations.  I find the lack of decisiveness pleasantly unintimidating.  This year, for some reason, I'm all about the decisiveness.  It's very unlike me.

Over the last year, for one reason or another, my life has been, or felt, to varying extents 'on hold'.  I won't get in to why, because it's not very interesting, but the result is that things just do not get done.  My room is a disaster: there are piles of unsorted papers lying around everywhere; there are two unpacked boxes in a corner, left over from the move in June; there are, I confess, dried up puddles (yes, plural) of cat vomit on my floor.  My laundry basket actually broke from excessive weight.  My mp3 player is full of podcasts I haven't listened to and  I am constantly surrounded by books and magazines I have not yet read.  I haven't touched my guitar in over six months.  (I was getting really good at that C major scale.)

I've reacted to this chaos with my usual manic list-making.  In the time it took me to write the last two paragraphs, I added 5 more items to my New Year's To Do List (including 'Mop floor', you may be relieved to know).  Soon I will divide this list into categories with coloured pens, because that's how I roll.

At first blush it might appear that my inclination for 2013 is to be more organised, but that would be wholly unnecessary.  I already have those coloured pens, after all.  I'm actually really good at organising chaos...in my head at least.  That's not really the issue.  What I need to do now is put away the coloured pens and just clean my room, do the laundry, pick up the phone and call the dentist.

In 2013, I resolve to get stuff done.