Despite saying that I would not publish my new year’s resolutions, I’ve changed my mind. Making resolutions at the end of one year for the next appears to be terribly old unpopular these days. That’s a shame. Deciding to better yourself by goal setting can only be a good thing. Making them public makes them real. Private resolutions are much harder to obtain results from. Here are my goals for 2012.
- I will quit smoking & drinking and alcohol
- I will quit the company of alcoholics and smokers
- I’ll publish 500,000 words here or elsewhere
- I’ll build a woodshed
- I’ll raise 5 new beds in my garden
- I’ll cycle 20 miles per day or take an equivalent amount of exercise until I weigh 12½ stone.
Unfortunately I recently started smoking again. Occupy London seemed to be full of smokers. It fitted neatly with the romantic revolutionary air the Occupationists were bent on creating. I found myself constantly in the company of smokers and myself smoking again.
By our society’s standards I don’t have an alcohol problem but clearly I drink too much. I do not seem to be one of these people who can take it in moderation, though I believe they do exist. Once I’ve got a pint in my hand, the cigarette comes next. I didn’t drink at all until I was 26 so I’ve a fair bit of experience of enjoying myself without it at all.
It’s easy to quit the company of smokers, thanks to the smoking ban in public places. They have to go elsewhere. Their numbers are decreasing. I’ve one or two friends who can properly be described as alcoholic. I’ve retained their friendship despite them frequently being destructive of that friendship. This declaration to avoid them is bound to prove controversial. Recognising that hanging out with addicts impresses bad behaviours as the norm is an important step for me to recover my physical, spiritual and mental health.
For many years, I declared I would write this many hundred thousand words or that many and never got close. After many years of blogging in private, on 28th February 2011, I started this blog. Now I’ve written over 330,000 words on it. My self-discipline of publishing a post every day has obliged me to write large. The act of daily composition has improved my writing, I believe. No-one every writes their best to begin with, it has to be worked at. If I’m heading towards the one million word mark by the end of 2012, I should be a much improved writer!
I’ve never built a woodshed before. My garden is full of fallen trees which need a home. Nestled inside a woodshed, the logs can season in their own time. This is a wholesome project which I’m really looking forward to. Expect photographs of progress here.
With the logs cleared out of my garden, there’ll be space for five new raised beds. They will only technically be raised beds. In fact they will be planks raised around areas of double dug earth. It’s a fair bit of physical work, especially with the ground still full of leylandii roots. Completing all five within a year will be quite a challenge.
The last challenge has been set down for me by my lovely wife. After losing three stone this year, I regained much excess weight in my recent time in London. On the year, I’m still down. Dieting is a disaster. As regular readers will know, in 2011 I joined weightwatchers and attained gold membership, which means that I can turn up for free. I only went once more after that achievement. The fact is I never followed their bizarre food value counting system – I just walked or cycled to my heart’s content and ate healthily. Whatever I weigh now, by this time next year I intend to weigh in at 12½ stone, which would be a very healthy weight for a man of my size. I am a big man.