Resolutions and the Last Day of Winter Break

Yes. It's the last day of winter break 2010 (mostly), my eighth grade and last day year of middle school. It's been one of the best breaks ever - I've managed to get a lot done, relax, and enjoy myself, while celebrating the holidays and spending lots of time with my family and friends. This morning my father woke me up at nine, making me quite disgruntled because I immediately realized that I had a doctor appointment at 10:00...and in no way did I want to jump right out of bed and start getting ready. Luckily, we did the appointment via Skype, so I didn't have to leave the house. I finished it about 45 minutes ago, and it went very well.

This hasn't been so interesting so far. I just wanted to mention my activities so far on this last day of winter break, as winter break seems rather monumental in the year and my personal perception of the year (for my birthday occurs during it), and this particular one seemed special as it is my last in middle school. (Tear, tear...seriously, it's sad that I'm almost done with middle school, although I'm thoroughly excited for high school...I'm excited for everything! Which can get frustrating sometimes, because I can't decide which thing I'm excited about that I want to do...overall, though, it's a very positive outlook, and I'm grateful for it. I'm a very glass half full person, in figurative and literal terms, because I alway like to have food or drink left in a bowl or cup... I can't help but experience a momentary melancholy when my dinnerware is empty.)

As for the other subject of this post : New Year's Resolutions. It's the third day of 2011, and our resolutions should still be at the new, exciting point in their development, going great. I, being a thoughtful, caring, and correcting person would of course have made one, if not many, new year's resolutions, correct?

Wrong. I confess that at no time during December 31st, 2010, or January 1st, 2011 did the thought of a resolution even cross my mind. I admit it, my guilt having passed in my confidence of the following conclusion.

The New Year - its celebration and some seemingly classic traditions that go along with it - has never held particular significance to me or my family. We usually stay home, enjoy a nice dinner together, and talk about what we've done in the previous year and what we'd like to do or are looking forward to in the year to come, along with staying up past midnight simply because it seems right. The symbolism of celebrating the New Year is what I hold important - starting anew, beginning the next cycle. However, chronologically, it still comes after the day before, when it was the previous year. If you started an activity - like cleaning your room, for instance - on Dec. 31st, it would still be left to be completed the next day, Jan. 1st. Yes, calendar-wise, it's the next year. Date-wise, everything's different because you have to become accustomed to writing "2011" instead of "2010". But it's not like there's suddenly a complete reorientation that happens at 12 midnight Dec. 31st. Things are still the same. People choose this time to change, to make resolutions, decisions, to kiss, to start something new...because the changing of the chronological year gives us an easy structure to do these things. However, it would be better to do them when they are needed. It would be better to get a job when one loses their old one. It would be better to go on a diet as soon as one realizes that they are not a satisfactory weight. It would be better to improve some aspect of yourself when you see fit. Better then, than at the marking of the New Year.

So in terms of resolutions, here's what I've realized: when I resolve to do something, I resolve to do it because I need or want to do it. Not because the calendar tells me to. (This is not to say that I don't go to piano lessons or play practice when it is scheduled - that, I let the calendar decide.) In fact, every day, I resolve to get things done - to practice piano, to brush my rabbit, to read, to write, to eat good food... If there is something new that I discover, I might resolve to start that or look into it more. Every day, I resolve, in the simplest and most complex terms, to be, thoroughly, ME. Being me entails doing all sorts of things that being you may not entail, because you and me are different people. For me, however, being me includes making resolutions when I need to, and deciding within myself something...yet I don't necessarily write them down. I don't stand up and declare to the world, "My resolution is...". I might go to my mom (as she is the most accessible person around when I wake up in the morning) and say, "I'm going to eat very healthily today," or, "I really need to get some exercise today". But that's it.

I simply resolve.

I have goals for the next year - but those goals are set at all times of the year. I set goals every day - that's how I get through my day. "When I finish this page, even though I just want to drop the book on my bed and go to sleep, I'm going to get myself out of bed and go to the bathroom because otherwise I know I won't be able to sleep." "After I finish drinking this cup of tea (you're probably noticing by now that I very much like to drink tea), I'm going outside to feed my rabbit." And as I finish one task, I am already formulating in my mind what I'll do next.

Here are some things I'd like to do: write a book, continue getting good grades, play squash and lacrosse, go to China, go to CTD at Northwestern University, spend time with my friends and keep building relationships, help people (the most likely possibility is, namely, some girls in Nepal that are in danger of human trafficking, and are at a school run by some Buddhist nuns that I have met, and know through one of my mother's friends)...among others. In short, I want to make a difference in the world. (I wish there were some other way to say that, for that term, as are so many others, is used so much that it's true meaning seems less important. I suppose I want to affect the world and the people in it in a positive manner...yes, that sounds about right.) But I'll always want to make a difference. I'll always want to make myself known. There are certain rungs on this ladder of success that can be climbed in the following year, so those can be my goals for the year. But my resolution has, and always will remain to be, to make a difference in some way.

When I notice that there's something I need to improve about myself, I go about doing it. I study a certain way or take more notes or notes in a certain way, I read books that I want to read more, I spend more time with my rabbit, I write regularly, I am kind to my parents and friends, especially if I know I've recently done something insensitive...but I do all of these things naturally, without even thinking about it. So instead of putting it in the material perspective (or so it seems to me, for I mean no offense to the many that don't share this belief) of the label, a "Resolution", I will keep doing things the way I do them.

If I were required to make a New Year's Resolution, here's what it would be:

Be MySeLf

For, as I have mentioned, myself is so many wonderful things, and includes my natural tendency to change what I need to change, I am quite satisfied with me.

Happy Monday, January 3rd, 2011, world. If we're to say "Happy" on other days determined by some long-ago decision-makers as holidays, which many times don't live up to be as happy as our expectations tell us they should be, then why not wish people "happy" on every day?