Well, these are slowly the last posts of the year. As usual, my first thought with them is to start them with "I ran late again with the posting, didn't I?", but I'm trying to refrain from that (and failing miserably). Of course, it's not like I've an actual commitment to you, lovely, dark, silent, anonymous Readers of Mine, but because that was one of my 2015 New Year Resolutions. Of course, I also decided to post at least monthly in my Hungarian blog but only managed to get it going well until August. Not like that's so bad, mind you. You see, like a friend of mine says: "the good thing about unfulfilled New Year Resolutions is that you can recycle them for the next year". So I'll be recycling that one. ^_^ Well, those two.
It's still early to make the recount of how I have fared with my other resolutions, but just let it be said that most of them have been fulfilled quite well, and I'm very pleased. Perhaps for 2016 I'll choose to give some continuation to them by resetting those unachieved, and for those achieved setting further goals or next steps. I think the point of Resolutions isn't to feel bad about making promises to ourselves that we don't keep (or don't intend to really keep), but rather to set an aspiration clearly before us, something to inspire us through the year, to feel good when we achieve it, and also to measure up ourselves, and see how close we've got to achieve it. It's kind of sad or pathetic to think of people who don't keep the promises they make to themselves. Pathetic when they don't keep them to themselves or to others. What worths a person who's word worths nothing?
But a Resolution isn't a promise, it's a goal, and as such, there are chances that you may achieve it or that you may not, and both of them are ok if you understand well the nature of the resolution and the underlying wisdom of it. The point of them - in my personal opinion - is to always be inspired to improve. It's like running a marathon: if you don't make it the first time, worry not. Take account of what happened, your strenghts, your shortcomings, your feelings, your impressions, and work on them, include them in your calclations, make your plans accordingly and reset your goals.
The problem, however, is when your goals strive for something you have no power upon. Resolutions like "winning the lotto" are quite set for failure, because aside from buying the lotto tickets there's really nothing you can do to ensure you achieve the goal. Well, of course that people hardly actually set goals like that, BUT they do set similar goals, like "open a successful business", or "make a lot of money", or "get married" (when they have no significant other at the moment, or the one they have have not shown any interest in getting married), or "become a super model" and stuff like that. So let's get real, there are things you can set as Resolutions because their achievement depends entirely of you. Saving up money for a trip, spending more time with the kids (assuming the kids have more time to spend with you), do more charity work, reduce your carbon footprint, lose or gain weight, get in shape, become more fit, get on track with your studies... those are all things where, if you apply yourself you can really achieve them, buut things like getting liked by the kind of people you want to date, or opening a successful business are not because they depend on other people. Let me explain this: say you want to be liked by girls and get married to a girl. You could study what girls like, learn how to be more likable, modify your behavior and all that in order to be more pleasing to girls and that's alright, but all you get is maybe attention. You don't command the liking of girls to be focused on you. It doesn't mean that there's something wrong with you, or that there's something you can fix about yourself, it simply means that the people you meet are not into you.
With the business is a tad more complicated, because there where one might want to make one person fall in love with them, or convince their long standing significant other to tie the knot, with a business you need to convince and keep a segment of the market interested in your product. Bookstores are filled with a bunch of garbage literature about "how to make a successful business", which are a large heap of bullshit. Again, it's not a matter of having the "keys of success" at your disposal, or sending the "right kind of energy to the universe", it's about demand and supply and what the fickle whims of the market want to grab on or not.
Some things need to be worked on and even with heaps of time and energy invested in them they may not achieve the dreamed business success or the dreamlike wedding. Disappointment ensues, as expected, but never the realization that the expectation was outside the realm of what was manageable.
Bottomline: when you plan out your Resolutions, think them in terms of what you can actually achieve by yourself (what you have control upon), in the alotted timeframe.
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