Happy New Year and all that Jazz

It’s the New Year! Happy 2009 everybody.

I hope it’s a good one.

One tradition I’ve never been too good at was the formulation (and completion) of New Years resolutions. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the concept. I even like it. Here you are, at the arbitrary changing of numbers and you naturally look back at your life and say “damn, what have I been doing?”

So you try to change.

Its just that I lack that self reflective, objective ability to see fault in myself. Some call that humility. I’m more or less awesome.

Ok, that was mostly a joke, but in all honestly its been hard in the past to pin point exactly what it is about my life that I want changed. There are the old stand by’s; exercise more, spend less money, read more books, but these aren’t really things I “dislike” about my self, or even think I’m doing “wrong”, just things that everyone should be doing more of (or less of as it comes to spending money).

This year is different. This will be an entire year spent in a different hemisphere. I will spend 365 days in a place I’m not native to and where most people don’t speak my language. This makes the New Years Resolution thing all the more challenging. For starters I can say I defiantly don’t need to read much more than I do now. The old stand-by’s are gone. Whats going to take they’re place?

Save the world more?

Do cool things more?

See Africa more?

None of it seems to fit.

I always felt that New Years Resolutions should be something that takes real courage and real personal insight to first, admit and second, to complete. They should be things about yourself that truly, honestly, need changing. If its easy it probably doesn’t mean much.

Or maybe I’m asking too much from a simple resolution.

The moral, I suppose, is that this entire year will be a total mystery.

Bring it on 2009!

An idea! Post your New Years Resolution’s here in the comments section. I’d love to read what you all plan on doing with your lives in the coming year.

Don’t worry, I don’t judge too much.