2016 New Years Themes

TLDR: My New Years "resolution" is to maintain a compassionate and conscientious identity while learning how to disconnect from the clutter, focus on what's important, and work towards personal wealth.

This year, my resolutions are centered around themes:

1. Disconnect

While I in school, I became reliant on social media. But during work life, social media is growing less appealing when it feels like I have to put more and more effort into image crafting and caring about what people think. The pervasiveness of social media has become a nuisance to me. Every time I check my phone with no notifications, I go straight to Facebook or Instagram, and it's usually of no productive value to me but it's an addiction! It's become so much of an addiction that I check my phone while driving impulsively. And that's really unsafe.

So one major theme of 2016, starting now, is "disconnect." I'm not sure how I will achieve this and how I will measure any success tangibly. I've heard of people swearing that smart watches change their life and during the brief week I had a Garmin Vivoactive, I can see why. A phone is something that is fully engaging while a smart watch limits your interactions and lets you stay on task. Because I had the smart watch to keep me inconspicuously connected, I was satisfied with my "connectedness" and rarely felt the urge to check my phone. It was great. Unfortunately, the Garmin Vivoactive did not live up to my aesthetic preferences and was too bulky for comfort on my wrist. I will keep an eye out for newer models of this watch.

One positive action that I'll take towards this is to hike and backpack more. I love the outdoors and I love taking in the scenery and, once I'm out there, I love the fact that I'm disconnected from society and work and all my human burdens. I love coming back and reconnecting, too, and I think that's part of what I'll enjoy from this theme. Honestly, I sometimes think the fundamental idea behind both the engagement with internet/social media and the search for great outdoors... is really that search for connectivity. They feel very different ... but isn't it true that we need people to feel connected to humanity and that we, conversely, need nature to feel connected to our personal humanity?

I feel like I'm halfway there. But I'll need to make an everyday, conscious effort to win this game.

2. Focus

This seems like a similar concept to the first, but my goals are different. I want to disconnect because I want to free myself from the clutter of "information overload" and from the need to "image craft" on social media. Once free, I want to fill it in with new, resonant, and/or productive things. But in order to do that, I must obtain a skill I has been underdeveloped for many years now: focus.

--the ability to set my mind on a task without getting distracted or being pulled in different directions. I've set many goals and resolutions in life only to be lost because I did not have focus. I've even started many unpublished blog posts that were unfinished because I did not have focus. It has to do with self-discipline against distractions, daily dedication, and determination even when failures occur. So instead of having goals or resolutions, I am going to work on my "focus" this year. That will be what is on my mind every time I tackle a new task.

To work on this, I will start with 15-20 mins of yoga stretch every day and 5 minutes of meditation every other day. Baby steps for now.

3. Wealth

For me, this is a weird theme. Money has always been a central theme in my life because it has always been a huge area of stress. My family has always been barely afloat on the financial front. I may have studied abroad on a tuition scholarship, but I struggled to make ends meet, feed myself, and pay for room and board. I used my free time in tutoring for money (and sometimes food) and had many stressful, sleepless nights. I had enough mindset to stay afloat because my mother was always very frugal and handled her credit well so our family never went completely broke.

However, in the game of wealth, I don't feel that I grew up with any role models. Wealth to a comfortable degree, where I could spend wisely but comfortably enough to buy nice, durable things, did not seem attainable to me while I was growing up. It was really just about survival...

I have to realize now that I am approaching a position where I can turn up. I've never felt interested in this whole grown up world of investments, mortgages, interest... Looking back, it was either because I never gave it much thought or I was scared of reaching very high (the less wealth you have, the less risks you can take).

In practice, tax season is coming up; time to really understand what I'm doing when I fill in those boxes! To start, I resolve to read more about how to manage my money, my wealth, and how to achieve enough to live comfortably and give back to my community. (Now taking book suggestions!)

P.S. Obviously this theme does not just apply to monetary wealth. :)

I still want to maintain the facets of my identity that I have developed.

I truly feel that I'm on my way to being the person I want to be. The more I discover myself, the more I find gaping holes. But the more I love myself, the more I give myself the mental and emotional resources to fill in those gaps.

A year ago, I set some goals and haven't reached very many of them. The bars I set for myself were high. And yet, I can't complain because I've definitely made progress on those personal goals.

Personal small victories in 2015:

1. I ran a 10km and a 7mi leg of a half marathon... within a year of my ACL Recontruction. (Tomorrow is my new knee anniversary!)
2. I picked up a new language (Microsoft SQL).
3. I traveled to London, Berlin, and Barcelona after a work presentation in Paris!
4. I was an AV tech at an ECG conference.
5. I became full time at a job I enjoy.
6. I wrote three articles and one mini-article for Synapse.
7. I will finish reading ten books by the end of the year.
8. I said those three words "I love you." to someone that swept me off my feet.
9. I went on my first backpacking trip in the Sierra Nevadas.

Overall, however, my real 2015 New Year's Resolution was to "continue cultivating a beautiful soul, worth sharing with others." That is actually a lifelong resolution that I resolved to make a mindset for myself a year ago. To that end, I feel that I've stayed true to that. I make it a point to constantly exercise emotional maturity and kindness and, though it's difficult to quantify, it's paid off. I've, for the most part, learned how to go through and let go of negative emotions when they appear. I've embraced anger and pain and I am very intentional about where I see the "blame." I'm more compassionate towards myself and others. I've started making healthier choices for myself--both emotionally and physically. 

However, the most difficult lesson this year, has been in distributing love and care to people I want to maintain relationships and longstanding friendships with. Those long distance relationships take work when you don't have easy access to them on the daily!! I'm still working on it and I think the themes I have chosen for this year will help with it.

Similarly, another thing I want to do is to embrace positive emotions and freely distribute joy to others in a healthy way. I have real certainty that the themes I focus on this year will help get me there.