the new year

For a number of years, I didn't believe in making New Year's Resolutions. Whether this was because I felt like I should be improving myself constantly/regardless of the time of year or because I was just lazy is anyone's guess, though I reserve the right to believe it was the former.

This year, though, I did manage to start early on what would normally be one of my resolutions. One of my goals for quite a while has been to improve my diet and exercise more often, which I've done on and off for years but haven't been able to sustain for long periods of time. I've been a runner for years and a swimmer in a past life, but I recently added biking to the cardio rotation and have been watching what I eat more carefully and even lost some weight to boot. I even finished a marathon (the Chicago Marathon!) in October - woo! There's still plenty of legwork left to be done, but starting the New Year already knee-deep in my goals feels good.

The big, overarching resolution for this year is to MAKE STUFF. This sounds vague. Let me explain. It actually originated from a Cracked article that I read this year, pointing out that it's very easy to criticize others' work while not creating any of your own. Most of us spend the vast majority of our time consuming things that others made: watching TV, browsing websites, etc. But only creating our own things makes us more valuable as people. For me, only being creative, making art, taking photos, and the like give me a reason for existence. This is what I'm devoting myself to this year. No more excuses. Every weekend can be spent outdoors taking pictures, going to the studio to paint, going through my insane backlog of photographs that I haven't edited or posted. These are things that mean a lot to me and they deserve more time than I've been spending on them.

Oh also, I definitely plan to keep up and further the progress I've already made in eating better/working out more. I replaced my running shoes recently - put over 450 miles on the last pair, and I'm excited to run even more this year than I did last. I absolutely plan to run at least one more marathon in 2015, if not two - I'll be running New York for sure, and Chicago for a second time if I manage to make it through the lottery again!

A quote from Iain Thomas' wonderful I Wrote This for You blog seems appropriate here:

"As you fell, you begged the air for just a little more time, for a second chance to do all the things you'd always meant to do.

So here it is.

You'll remember nothing of what happened.

You'll feel exactly the same.

You'll find yourself back in front of the computer, reading the same post on the same blog that started it all so many years ago.

And only the words in this post have changed.

And this is a little more time.

And this is your second chance.

And it starts: Now."

Happy 2015, everyone - I hope you all make yourselves proud this year.