Resolutions 2023

The theme for 2022 was resilience. Over this past year most of us have gotten at least one lesson on the importance of resilience, whether it was because of a job loss, a major change in a relationship, a death in the family, or because their entire social life was upended. However, the fact is, life changes, and sometimes changes a lot in a very short period of time. Fragility is the natural state of things – it takes systems, planning, and preparation to set things up so that they can be relied upon, even if the assumptions underlying the system become unstable. Note that resilience doesn’t fix things that are fundamentally wrong – it just smooths out the disruptions that occur when surprises happen. It’s been an interesting year for us this year. We hit several of our goals, others changed due to life circumstances, and even others are still in progress. Sometimes it would be nice to not live in times that will be in the history books other times it’s exciting to see what’s going to happen. No matter what is going on in the world around us we learned this past year about being resilient and creating goals that will stand through even the tough times. As we go into 2023 we will spend our time learning how to better accomplish our goals by managing ourselves and our time wisely and breaking our goals down into manageable chunks that we can accomplish. Resolutions Beej Get at least one Azure certificate. Yes this is a carry over from last year but I still plan to complete it especially now that I’m on the regular performance plan schedule at work. I’m going to follow Will’s advice and get the fundamentals (AZ 900) certification first, then work toward the developer (AZ 204). Learn to play 4 worship songs on the keyboard, not the synth (playing whole notes). Be able to play the full song along with the recording of the band playing. At least one will be a fast song, likely the third one I attempt to learn. I’ve already learned to play some parts of songs but not a whole worship song. As a bonus goal, outside of my control, I’d like to be able to play the keyboard with the band either in practice or at a special event like a creative night. My long term goal is to become fluent in Albanian. For this next year I plan to get more regimented with my study by setting aside daily time to study Albanian. I also aim to have a full conversation in Albanian beyond small talk/casual greetings. Create a creative space in my house for doing all the creative activities (painting, music, writing, photography, etc.) that I do. I spend most of my free time involved in some sort of creative activity. The largest room in my house is barely used when I’m awake, bedroom. Over the course of the year I plan to move my office into the spare (creative) room, then move my bed into the room I now use for an office. After doing that I will turn what is now my bedroom into a creative arts room. My primary goal for the year is to maintain the gains (or losses) I’ve made this past year. I’ve reached a healthy weight and am developing a healthy lifestyle. That said I also want to push myself as that will keep me focused more than maintenance. Right now I’m running about 10 miles per week on average (1.5 on lifting days and 2-3 on cardio days). I injured myself pushing too much too soon this past year so I’m going to increase but slowly. My goal is to work myself up to averaging 20 miles per week (2 on lifting and 5-6 on cardio and adding 4-5 on weekends). Cutting back and focusing on saying no this past year along with hurting my knee running has shown me the benefit and necessity of rest. In addition to continuing to have a night for creative endeavors, this year I plan to take one day off completely from any sort of work. A big part of this is reducing screen time so less time in front of the computer, watching TV, and playing on my phone. I’m going to track my screen time on each of these devices and aim to reduce it by at least 30% by the end of the year. Will