Every time someone asks me about my New Year’s resolutions, I think about this Brenda Ueland quote:
“When you will, make a resolution, set your jaw, you are expressing an imaginative fear that you won’t do the thing.
“If you knew you would do the thing, you would smile happily and set about it.
“And this fear (since the imagination is always creative) comes about presently and you slide down into the complete slump of several weeks or years – the very thing you dreaded and set your jaw against.”
Damn straight.
I prefer keeping a private bible: a little list of goals, and a few quotes. It keeps me mindful and focused, and works.
One of my goals1 is to write here more often. There were few substantive posts last semester because I was either studying, or working, or in a state of irritation2 or pettiness.
So, the goal, or resolution, or whatever-you-want-to-call-it is to live a life that I can blog about. This means I need to develop a better immunity to life’s daily annoyances2 and be as positive as possible without parroting Wavey.
We’ll see how I do.
1 Lest I say resolutions…
2 The things that I was preoccupied with were not blog fodder – subjects impolite to write about and things that I suspect I don’t want to remember, ie, being annoyed at the boyfriend for not calling, insanely loud girl at work and her liquid leggings, off topic guy in class, etc.
I love that Ueland qoute. Never even considered it until now but I Think I’ll start a private bible myself. Great Post!
Thanks!
[...] all so much as statements of things that will happen (barring an utter catastrophe). A quote that Jansen posted here pretty much sums up why I haven’t had “real” [...]