2013 in review

2013 was a successful year in terms of New Year’s Resolutions. I resolved to not shop at Walmart for an entire year. Although there were some times where this was inconvenient, I feel good about my completion of my resolution.

This was not a protest of corporations or low wages, but rather of customer service. I hate going in to Walmart and not being able to find anything or anyone to help. The items are always jumbled in their shelves. Price tags are missing. Most items are also low quality. The registers are the worst part. They have one or two registers open with huge lines and then self check out. I despise self check out, because it is so impersonal. I’d rather wait in line for a little bit and talk to a person than go through the hassle of self check out.

So, for these reasons and because I wanted a challenging resolution, I stopped shopping at Walmart. I learned that not everything is open all the time, but that’s ok. I just have to make sure I plan my life out slightly rather than going shopping at midnight. As for the “bargains” at Walmart, I find that with the Target credit or debit card’s 5% savings, prices are irrelevant.

2014 resolution

Moving on to 2014, my challenge for myself is to learn to lift free weights and do so every week of the year. If anyone has any suggestions on how to best do this, please feel free to comment or message me. I’m open to any advice.

I’ve been a runner most of my life, but I want to try lifting weights. I have many friends who swear by it, but I’ve always found it to be cumbersome and have a negative stigma.

The main thing I will have to overcome is making a habit of going to the gym and lifting the weights. I have a few friends who are willing to show me the ropes, and the internet has a wealth of instruction, but actually going up and doing the lifting will be the challenge.

The other things I will have to struggle with is not knowing what I’m doing and the negative view I have had of people who lift weights. I have a hard time when I don’t know what I’m doing.

When people say things like, “I’m going to the gym to get swol,” I just want to murder them, but to become one of these people I have to learn to accept them and their colloquialisms.

Other ponderings for 2014

I find that if I have multiple resolutions for the same year, I never accomplish any of them, hence my single New Years Resolution. I’ve spent most of the day thinking about changes I would like to see in my life in 2014. As an extrovert, this is weird for me, but I’m going with it. Other things that I want to change about my life in 2014 are:

Realize what I have control over

In 2014 I want to live under the knowledge that the only person that I can control is myself. There have been many things that I have worried about that are out of my control: traffic, issues with my co-workers, things my roommates do that annoy me, etc. I want to stop worrying about those things. I cannot control other people; I can only control myself.

In this same vein, if there’s something I can control, I should. For example, it bothers me when my apartment is not clean. Instead of waiting on my roommates to clean up their stuff, I should just clean it. It bothers me more that the apartment is not clean than that my roommates are not acting like adults.

Don’t put my value in what others think of me

This has always been a struggle of mine. I would like to find my value in myself, but I often reach for it in other’s praise. I want to be self-reliant. I want to not care what other people think of me.

Don’t wait until tomorrow

I have so many things that I push off into tomorrow Neverland that I should just deal with and not have to deal with again. There is always personal email that I mark as unread and think, I’ll deal with that eventually. I want to be the type of person who either deals with it or forgets about it.

Many times I find myself putting things off until tomorrow and they do not get done until weeks later. I want to get the things done so that I have time to do the fun things I would like to do.

These are my New Years ideas. What are yours?