The arrival of 2013—while certainly disappointing to the disillusioned believers in the apocalyptic Mayan "prophecy"—has started me thinking about my personal goals, both those I set for myself last year and those I am considering for the upcoming year. And while I may not have hit every benchmark I was hoping to in the last twelve months, I feel that the future is looking brighter, or at least more attainable.
In the early days of this blog, I set a few mid-year resolutions. (You can read the entire post here, if you would like.) Let's see how well I did on those, shall we?
1) Sticking with Savage Worlds: I tried on this one. I really, really tried. But the more I used Savage Worlds for my tabletop role-playing, the more I realized that it didn't suit the way I wanted to tell stories. It's just too tactical for my below-average strategic mind. When I'm building a combat encounter in an RPG, I don't generally think of exactly how long and difficult a particular spot of rough ground is. I don't consider the optimal places to insert cover or traps. I know that I want those things in the scene, but I don't quite know what I'm doing with them. And as much as I enjoyed playing and running Savage Worlds, I just don't think that crunchy tabletop mechanics are going to work for me. (My current RPG darling is Fate Core, and I've been having a whole lot of fun converting things over to that system, even without my players' permission.)
2) Spend more time with my family: This one was working out just fine, until Baby #3 came along. Since he came into the picture, our lives have been a bit of chaos lightly tossed with a whole lot of cute infant. As a result, I've been retreating into my hobbies about the time dinner is over. There have been times when I've tried extra hard to interact with my kids and wife—and those have been great—but there's still some work to be done.
3) Finishing the games I had before buying new ones: I made a good bit of progress on this goal last year, but the sales and bundles just became too tempting. I think I'll give this one another go for 2013, which should be easy considering that I'm going to have a small gaming budget, both temporally and financially.
4) Writing every day and keeping this blog current: Considering that this is my first post in five months, you can guess how well I've been doing on this goal. I've been scribbling down ideas (mostly RPG-related) every couple of days, but I haven't been working on any writing that I would be able to submit along with my grad school application. With my last prerequisite class coming up this semester (I start the class next week), I really need to get to work on that. And considering the therapeutic consequences of me writing, it really would be better for me to keep up with this.
5) Reading at least one new book a month: I may not have accomplished this goal every month, but I think I exceeded my expected number of books read quite handily. (I read through three or four Dresden Files novels within four or five days, so I'm pretty sure I'm covered on that point.) I'm not sure how well I'll be able to keep up with this one, what with my classwork and my freelancing on top of my full-time job, but we'll see how it goes. I enjoy reading enough that I'll probably try to squeeze some in now and again.
As for 2013, I'm still refining exactly what I want to accomplish in the next twelve months, but here are a few candidates I'm considering.
1) Lose fifteen pounds. While I wouldn't consider myself unhealthily overweight, I am packing some extra Locke around that doesn't need to be there. This is partially to support my wife as she works to shed the lingering pregnancy weight from Baby #3 and partially because I don't like seeing the spare tire around my waist when I get into the shower.
2) Write for 30 minutes, six days a week, and post to this blog at least once per week. This is very similar to my spectacularly failed goal from last May, but it's something that I feel is important enough for me to continue working on. The writing time shouldn't be difficult during the next few months, since I'll probably be writing a lot for my literature class, anyway. Finding intelligent topics to comment on for this blog, however, may be a bit more difficult. (Who am I kidding? I don't write about intelligent things here.)
3) Don't buy any video games in 2013. This one is definitely a work-in-progress, but it's something I'm strongly considering. I'm an impulse shopper who believes in the power of retail therapy. And yes, that's a bad thing. To me, at least. I have over seventy games in my Steam collection, fewer than twenty of which I have actually played through all the way. (And several I haven't even installed.) I enjoy video games; they're a great entertainment resource to me. But with everything I have weighing on my time and on my liquid assets, I may have to be putting my priorities elsewhere. I still plan on playing the games that I have when I get some time, though, and I'll probably bore you all with my ramblings about them here.
4) Try to have a more optimistic outlook. How's that for a nebulous goal? As ill-defined as it is, though, being optimistic is something I think I really need to work on. Over the past several weeks, I've realized that I may have a mild case of depression. I haven't been clinically diagnosed, but I have noticed a perceptible upswing in my mood and powers of concentration after starting a regimen of St. John's Wort. While the herbal supplements don't always guarantee I'll be on Cloud Nine, they do help to even out my moods and shift my emotional epicenter significantly toward being happy. Even with all of that, I'm a worrier and a pessimist, and neither of those qualities are productive. I was reading a post on the Art of Manliness blog this morning, and one thing that stood out to me was that manly men are the ones who actively work toward changing things for the better, rather than sitting idly by and worrying whether their half-empty glasses are going to shatter inexplicably. I've begun to think it's time I got off my duff and got to work. This kind of takes the place of the "Interact with my family" goal from last year, but I honestly believe that trying to be a happier and more optimistic person will help in my family relationships, too.
5) Increase my editing workload. As some of you may know, I work full-time as an executive secretary at BYU. What you may not know is that I'm also freelancing as a book editor on the side. It's neither glamorous nor high-paying, but it's something I enjoy that keeps me busy and brings in a modest income that helps me support my family. Love what you do, right? Since this is one area where I feel my talents and training truly lie, I'd like to ramp things up a bit. I'm currently in the middle of one project and hope to have another one at the beginning of next month, but I think I'd like to do more. Although I'd love to be able to edit for a full-time living, I think that the first key is going to be finishing what I have on my plate and then politely petitioning the cook for more. Insert Life, the Universe, and Everything. The symposium is a wonderful resource for science fiction and fantasy authors, and it's also a place where I can advertise my services to the clientele I'm hoping to attract. The current plan is to attend all three days of the conference with a big stack of business cards. I may not get too many new clients, but I'll never know until I try, right?
And that is my long-winded attempt at a New Year's Resolution post. How did I do?
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