January 2011

This Ann Landers column from 1997 was recently shared with me at work. I thought it would be good to share with the class.

Let this coming year be better than all the others. Vow to do some of the things you’ve always wanted to do but couldn’t find the time for. Call up a forgotten friend. Drop an old grudge and replace it with some pleasant memories. Share a funny story with someone whose spirits are dragging. A good laugh can be very good medicine.

Vow not to make a promise you don’t think you can keep. Pay a debt. Give a soft answer. Free yourself of envy and malice. Encourage some youth to do his or her best. Share your experience and offer support. Young people need role models.

Make a genuine effort to stay in closer touch with family and friends. Stop magnifying small problems and shooting from the lip. Words that you have to eat can be hard to digest.

Find the time to be kind and thoughtful. All of us have the same allotment: 24 hours a day. Give a compliment. It might give someone a badly needed lift.

Think things through. Forgive an injustice. Listen more. Be kind. Apologize when you realize you are wrong. An apology never diminishes a person. It elevates him. Don’t blow your own horn. If you’ve done something praiseworthy, someone will notice eventually.

Try to understand a point of view that differs from yours. Little is all one way or another. Examine demands you make on others.

Lighten up. When you feel like blowing your top, ask yourself, “Will it matter a week from today?” Laugh the loudest when the joke is on you. The sure way to have a friend is to be one. We are all connected by your humanity, and we need each other. Avoid malcontents and pessimists. They drag you down and contribute nothing.

Don’t discourage a beginner from trying something risky. Nothing ventured means nothing gained. Be optimistic. The can-do spirit is the fuel that makes things go.

Go to war against animosity and complacency. Express your gratitude. Give credit when it’s due – and even when it isn’t. It will make you look good. Read something uplifting. Deep-six the trash. You wouldn’t eat garbage, why put it in your head? Don’t abandon your old-fashioned principles. They never go out of style. When courage is needed, ask yourself, “If not me, who? If not now, when?”

Take better care of yourself. Remember, you’re all you’ve got. Pass up that second helping. You really don’t need it. Vow to eat more sensibly. You’ll feel better and look better, too. Don’t put up with secondhand smoke. Nobody has the right to pollute your air or give you cancer. If someone says, “This is a free country,” remind him or her that the country may be free but no person is free if he has a habit he can’t control.

Return those books you borrowed. Reschedule that missed dental appointment. Clean out your closet. Take those photos out of the drawer and put them in an album. If you see litter on the sidewalk, pick it up. Give yourself a reality check. Phoniness is transparent and tiresome. Take pleasure in the beauty and the wonders of nature.

Walk tall and smile more. You’ll look 10 years younger. Don’t be afraid to say “I love you.” Say it again. They are the sweetest words in the world. If you have love in your life, it can be the best year ever.

So here it is the first official workday of the New Year and everyone is trying to get back into the routine of this thing we call life. I’m not getting the sense that there’s a lot of resolutions in progress in the cubes surrounding mine, but the again my co-workers are a sensible lot and don’t seem like the fanatical type. They’re a good bunch.

As I work on streamlining more organizational skills at work, I have also added another element to my habits at work: I’m not going to be afraid to laugh out loud when the mood strikes. After all, I love what I do and I’m a happy person and I hear laughter is contagious, so that has to be a good thing.

All in all the New Year is off to a grand start. I think it’s a trend. Or at the very least, I’ll make sure it is.

So here it is the second day of 2011 and I’m starting to realize that there’s whole New Year thing going on. It’s sort of odd on how this realization seems to happen around the same time every year. I’ll have to make a note to look into that.

In the past I have made a thousand and one resolutions in some sort of life revolution and of the thousand or so thoughts crammed onto a list in a year, maybe one or two stick. This year I have written down a list of goals instead of resolutions and even though they’re kind of the same thing I’m finding it easier to be goal oriented instead of having some sort of revolution about resolutions. Most of my goals are personal goals that I don’t intend on sharing on this public blog but some of the things I’m doing are kind of geeky and some are downright foolish and somewhat wish-oriented.

1. I’m reaching out to more people around me instead of being a surly hermit. I’m not going to friend you on Facebook and the like unless I actually have met you or have the intention of our paths crossing some time this year, but nevertheless I’m not going to be the loner standing in the corner. You know the guy in the corner, the one that looks like he could go postal even though he looks like a bald Richie Cunningham.

2. I am organizing my life a bit better so I can concentrate on being creative or actually focus on whatever task I am working on instead of trying to remember everything that I aneed to remember. This involves the use of sync’d up software called “OmniFocus“, which is based on the “Getting Things Done” methodology by David Allen, which is discussed here. I despise written “to-do” lists and have always tried to find ways to maintain these things in an electronic method; OmniFocus works well for me. There are other software packages that do this but so far I’m loving OmniFocus. I am lucky that I have a husbear that gave me the budget to embark on this little project. (I made a note to thank him before 03 Jan 11).

3. It’s probably evident that I’ve started blogging in the long-form “traditional” way again, like I used to do with more regularity. I’m going to continue to do that, because sometimes life is too fantastic, intriguing or just damn good to share in 140 characters or less.

4. I noticed that my tendency to take random photos fell back when I moved from the iPhone to the Droid back in April ’10. Over the past week or so I have made a concerted effort to take more photos using the Droid and about one third of the time there was angst when the camera app wanted to be forced to quit or the picture wouldn’t save. I love the openness of the Android platform but I just want the damn thing to work and quite frankly I miss the “fit and finish” of the iPhone. While I can’t move back to AT&T for at least a year and I am quite pleased with Verizon’s service, I am really hoping that Apple releases a Verizon iPhone sometime soon so I can make the switch back to Apple. If it doesn’t happen (and the rumors are wrong), I am seriously considering buying an iPod Touch and using that as my phone in conjunction with my Skype number and the Verizon MiFi hotspot I always carry around with me.

5. I want to experience a hurricane sometime in 2011. And a tornado. I’m talking having to run to the basement and being scared out of my wits. I don’t want to die or anything, I want to live.

I am very happy with where I am in my life and I think by setting goals (including the majority not listed here), 2011 is going to be a fantastic year. I am a very lucky man to have found the sweet spot of what I’ll freely admit is the beginning of my middle-aged years.  I couldn’t do it without the husbear and family and friends I have. I’m looking forward to many paths crossing and personally growing in 2011.

Thanks for coming along for the ride.