Resolve

Tonight we will simply (should be stay awake) toast in the New Year. In past years I've had a dinner party...small with some good friends. I've made some wonderfully memorable dinners. But not this year. I may not even try to stay awake this year. It's funny to think 10 years ago how there was much handwringing about the computers of the world coming to a grinding halt. We even know people who were hoarding food and water.

I'm not a believer in fear mongering. I'm not a believer in carping from the sidelines. I see much of the media sausage--to include private blogging--to be devoted to negativity. I've never believed that positive change comes about from that sort of mentality. Rather, if the amount of energy spent railing was channeled into working toward effective change and positive outcomes, we'd all be the better for it.

I'm planning on being economic in my resolutions and merely reprising my 2008 resolutions which I've listed above. I adopted this format as a balanced scorecard approach. I have all of those items filled in, but that is no interest to any but me. But I would encourage you think about taking a similar approach in order to balance how you think about your life.

I've been reflecting a bit this week. These reflections have been of an odd, meandering type, likely induced by a confluence of factors that I'll not bore you with. But as this year closes down, I've this distinct feeling that I've traversed over some imaginary threshold. I am not the person that I once was...and this is not a feeling that I've ever experienced. No, I'm not having some psychologically dis-associative event (not that I would even know what that is!).

Perhaps all of this is merely my having to embrace a new decade age-wise....I'll be 50 this year...and that is decidely on the tail end of middle age. I wondered about it so I consulted Wikipedia:

The US Census lists middle age as including both the age categories 35 to 44 and 45 to 54, while prominent social scientist, Erik Erikson, sees it ending a little later and defines middle adulthood as between 40 and 65.

Whatever the threshold I'm passing over--I hope to not trip. Ultimately, I resolve treat each day as the beginning of a new year (which it is!)and greet it with courage and grace for the opportunities and challenges that it holds. That seems like quite a fine way to begin.

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