New Year’s Resolutions

Although I don’t believe that there is anything magical about New Year’s resolutions and that people should constantly strive to improve their lives without limiting it to a once-a-year thing that falls on December 31st, I find great joy in making New Year’s resolutions. It’s a good idea to stop and take stock of things and adjust our trajectories now and again, and New Year’s is just as good as any other arbitrary date.

Plus it seems to be trendy this year not to make New Year’s resolutions.  Being the stubborn contrarian that I am, I’m going to do it anyway.

What has 2009 brought for me?

• I finished grad school.
• I left Arizona and moved to a city that I enjoy much more than Phoenix.
• I heard someone say “I love you” to me for the first time in almost three years (not counting my mom or best friend).
• I decided to go out on a limb and use the rest of my savings to try and start a business that may just end up financing the rest of my life (!).
• I became poor.
• I left the country (even if it was just Canada, and even if it was only for four days).
• I decided to follow my dreams.

Overall, pretty good.  I must say, this isn’t the way I planned on everything playing out.  I wish I made more money, and I wish my girlfriend and I could travel more, and I wish she didn’t have to go to work at a job she doesn’t like.  But I suspect that will be a story for 2010.

For 2010, I’m making a few resolutions:

• I want to get up to making about $40-50k per year online.
• I want to begin outsourcing and removing myself from the equation so I can have free time.
• I want to be able to pay for my girlfriend to go to school full-time for Spring Quarter (around March).
• I want the two of us to go on a one-month mini-retirement to Thailand.
• I want to study Japanese.
• I want to take some art classes.
• I want to participate in NaNoWriMo in November.
• I want to develop this blog into something more.
• I want to laugh in the face of everyone who told me to get a job and that I was wasting my time (this is my petty goal for the sake of revenge and my ego).
• I want us to move to San Francisco.
• I want to buy new clothes (haven’t in two years).

Well, I guess that’s pretty much it.  When you’re setting goals, it’s important to go into insane detail about them.  I’ll spare you all my rambling daydreams and write them down privately.  But, well, I’d like to come back to this post next year and see how I did.

So hold my feet to the fire, and make sure I make an effort to make these goals a reality.

I hope you all have a great New Year’s.  And I hope we all have a great 2010!

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