Saturday, December 24, 2016

2017 NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS

I'm working on my 2017 New Year's resolutions. I usually resolve NOT to resolve anything. This allows me to have a totally open mind, or at least I think that's what it does. In reality, it just ensures I won't mess up and break a resolution on January 2, by accident, of course. In short, I'm making certain that I'm not setting myself up for failure.

You see, I understand keeping resolutions is a tough job. A quick search on the world's most popular internet search engine (You know which one I'm talking about.) for suggestions for keeping NYR reveals 84,400,000 results in 0.42 seconds.

One of the sites (www.statisticbrain.com/new-years-resolution-statistics/) indicates that the percent of people who are successful in achieving their resolution is 8 %. (This study was done by University of Scranton. Journal of Clinical Psychology.) Even if the figure is off, it's still a pitiful number, isn't it?

Now that we've established that difficulty exists (which we already knew), let me announce here and now that I've found the real answer to the conundrum of keeping resolutions:

Just resolve to do the GOOD things you normally do BETTER.

(Kind of a poorly constructed sentence but I'm sure you get the point.)

With that in mind, here are a half-dozen resolutions I'll been working on for 2017--resolutions I'm sure I'll keep. Note: I've included some interesting, fun -- and in a few cases suggestible -- links. Check them out to see where they lead.

DRINK MORE WATER

Even if you're not interested in hydration, you might be interested in this site which pinpoints natural springs across the U.S. and in parts of Canada. (Might make for an interesting if very long road trip.)

EAT MORE CHOCOLATE

After all, according to Charles Schultz, "All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt." (Who are we to argue?)

READ MORE BOOKS

I can't imagine a day without reading so this won't take effort. This year I'm focusing on learning more about how the brain operates.

BREATH MORE AIR

Does this really need additional input? In Nevada, you can still smoke in public places, especially in casinos, though many are now sporting smoke-free areas.

LISTEN TO GOOD MUSIC

I know I have my trusty mp3 player as well as access to all kinds of music on the web, but there's something special about actually being up close to music while it's happening.

That's it. I'm definitely setting myself up for success. I was thinking of doing a follow-up every now and then but I don't think that's necessary. What I would like is a suggestion or two that I can add to the list. Anybody?

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