Back at the dawning of this here year 2012, I claimed that I would attack my resolutions on a monthly basis.
The thinking: long term success will be more achievable if I strive for absolute human perfection incrementally rather than all at once. So I wrote down 12 resolutions – one for each month – in a notebook that was refashioned from an old Nancy Drew mystery.
This month’s resolution: GO ON EIGHT DATES.
It’s no coincidence that I chose this one during the month in which Valentine’s Day takes place. I’m not a big proponent of the VD, but I do think it’s important to invest in your relationship. Billy and I both work from home, which means we see an awful lot of each other. This arrangement definitely sets the stage for taking each other for granted.
So what qualifies as an actual date? I mean, we already ingest food at the same time and place on a regular basis, right?
I think it boils down to three things:
- intention – have you specifically set aside this time for a date?
- focus – are you really focussing on/appreciating your partner? NO iPhone!!! Unless it’s a sex positions app…
- good behaviour – set aside your grievances against this person and life in general for the duration of the date. Any discussion of bills is strictly prohibited. And if this person does something that annoys you, just hit your internal mute button. Resist the urge to pout or hijack that person’s emotions on any level. Try to remember what you liked about him/her in the first place, and think of the date as a relationship massage. You’d never bitch about your incompetent co-worker while you were getting a $200 massage at a spa, would you? Well there you go.
I’m going to write down four dates and so is Billy. They don’t have to be of “Weekend in Paris” proportions. I will mix a couple of bigger things with a couple of minimalist activities. Then we’ll put them in a visually-pleasing receptacle of some sort and draw them one at a time. The irony is that I actually won’t even be with him for Valentines Day (cold b-word that I am).
I will recap and tell you what we did when I post March’s “Resolutions Project.”
Speaking of which…
January resolution postmortem: BE KINDER TO MYSELF
January’s resolution was to muzzle the critical voices in my head that tell me I need to do more, more, MORE. It’s not like I was able to do a stretch or make some weird smoothie to counteract this problem – it was more of an internal thing.
I was actively thinking about this all month – an ongoing meditation of sorts – and I feel that I did make a bit of headway. A few examples of what I did:
House Cleaning Hiatus – I still cleaned my house, but I took off the mental pressure to blitz the place. I’ve adopted the technique of “never leaving a room empty-handed,” for instance if I’m going from my office to the kitchen I’ll bring along that dirty teacup. Or if I’m going downstairs I’ll bring the puppet Reggie along. This is an easy peasy method.
iPhone Break – most days, I walk to the post office and, when I do, I leave my iPhone at home. My iPhone can quickly morph from a friendly Angry Birds buddy to a messenger of stress. It sounds pathetic, but I need to prove to myself that I can live without it for those 20 minutes. Disconnecting allows me to enjoy the walk and look at trees instead of email.
Forgiveness – I’m telling myself it’s okay if I don’t finish everything I set out to do in a day (was I really going to “write a novel” in a single day, anyway?)
Punching Out – I work a lot, because I like what I do. Nonetheless, too much working of any sort can burn you out. So I’ve been trying to act more like a normal person and do some proper leisure activities that I’m not photographing like a mad blogger. For instance, I take an awesome hip hop dance class, visit a yoga studio, and watch a lot of BBC’s Victorian Farm. Yeah, I just mixed hip hop and Victorian Farm in the same sentence!
Do you relate to any of these issues? How are your resolutions going?
