To Plan or Not To Plan...

Here we are once more, the first post--and IWSG meeting--of 2013. I guess the joke's on those who spent their life savings on underground bunkers and enough Campbell's soup to last a nuclear winter. But, if you ask me, anyone who didn't pay attention to the surviving Mayas saying they knew nothing about this End of the World nonsense had it coming. Still, I feel bad for them. 12/13/12 must've been a very awkward day at the office.

My mother always tells me everyone talks about the fair depending on how it went for them and she is right. And though I know it's frowned upon to talk ill of the recently deceased, I must say last year was not my best year. Not by a long shot, but it wasn't a total wash either. It was more like some idle time where I didn't accomplish many goals but I set the ground work that will enable me to see them come to fruition. Half of 2012 was gone by the time I got my sh*t together. But it ended on a high note, and for that I'm grateful. Now, I'm back at my computer like a year ago, feeling like it was yesterday when 2012 knocked on my door with the promise of so many possibilities. As did the year before. And the one before that.

Differently to those past years, this January 2nd I don't have fail resolutions. I don't feel the burden of failure and the excitement of turning the page anew. For me, this wednesday feels exactly the same as last wednesday. My goals haven't changed and the foundations that took me all that 'idle time' to build are still there, giving fruits. I didn't even bother to think of my new year's resolutions. I have my old year resolutions that haven't changed. And I'll be damned if I don't finish with those first before I set new ones.

Most people talk about their expectations for the new year, their dreams and hopes. They are determined to change that which derailed last year's hopes and dreams. This time it will be different, they say. And then they go on and put 8 out of the 10 failed items on the list once more. What's the point, I say. Did your mom write a new To Do list when you hadn't finished the last one? Had she re-written it on a different color paper or with a different pen, would you have felt more inclined to finish it faster?

Nonsense. I still want to loose those 10 lbs I have been carrying around my mid-section since my youngest one was born, six years ago. I still want to get on the treadmill at least three days a week. I still know that unless I set a schedule and actually stop eating and start exercising, those two items will remain in my To Do list for quite some years. What I'm trying to say is that we all start the year with our best intentions and daydreaming with the possibilities, but it is about October that we realize those dreams were unrealistic or that we haven't been serious about them. It is then that we start to scramble to make it happen, knowing it is impossible. Then we get depressed at our failure and want to strike it off our record with the new year. What if instead of stopping the effort you started in October you kept going until you actually made it?

This is what I'm planning to do. I'll keep posting every monday and friday--plus every first wednesday of the month--on this blog. I'll keep working on my new novel, carrying the momentum that took me so long to build. I'll keep trying to be a better writer, mother, wife, and daughter everyday. And I'll keep refusing to call myself a failure until success is the only word left in my vocabulary.

I wish the same for you. Happy new year!