On my NYE, only two resolutions were made. I try not to make a habit of making the yearly promises of self improvement; the only time I've actually done so was two years ago, when I vowed to stop riding escalators or if unavoidable, to at least walk them. I've had a serious hate on for escalators for quite some time. Elevators too are not on my list of favorite things. I blame escalators and Mcdonalds for obesity. The fact that people can't walk up a set of stairs just proves how lazy we have become as a society.
When I did my Canada World Youth exchange, before the Cubans came to Canada, they had to learn how to use escalators and were put on some sort of simulator in Havana. Before they got off the airplane in Toronto, they had never seen the real deal before.
I think secretly, my escalator promise was a way of resoluting to try and lose weight without actually vocalizing this wish (I sometimes tend to revolt against pop culture or the norm while harbouring a secret desire to be just like everyone else. Only sometimes though.) The only time since then that I've been forced to ride the "lazy staircase" was when I broke my shoulder snowboarding shortly after making said resolution and I decided it was probably a better idea to swallow my pride than to wind up with a second broken limb or worse yet, a bruised ego.
Since I'd been so diligent in sticking to my vow for the past two years, I decided that this year I would take a leap of faith (in myself), and make two resolutions:
1).write more letters (specifically hand written but I also get points for emails)
and
2).stop being judgemental (about others and also, myself)
Both of these are hard for me to do. I don't actually remember the last time I mailed something out that wasn't a bill and even that has now been made accessible online therefore furthering the redundancy of the written word and the postage stamp alike. With tools like myspace and now the ever popular (and rising) facebook and twitter (the latter of which I do not subscribe, thank you very much)have given us the resources to know what every person we ever wanted to know anything about is up to at any given moment therefore TKOing the email all together. What do you write to someone you already know everything about and that knows everything about you? Nothing is left up to the imagination anymore. A few years ago, my friends and I used to email each other multiple times a day; like passing notes in class except this was post graduation and we were all who knows where in the world. We would send each other jokes, and anecdotes and photos of out latest outfits. Now with the
to-the-second updates provided by online networking tools, this has been deemed unnecessary. The only emails I receive these days are from Sephora, telling me about the new deals I can get on make up I can't afford and CWY alumni updating me on what the orgnisation is doing for the world. (Oh, and my mother when I don't answer her succession of phone calls). The one person from whom receive the occasional email and who I look forward to hearing from is my nearly 98 year old grandfather who, once upon a time, used to send me hand written letters in the mail.
If I were truly going to hold on tight and take the power back, I would cancel my facebook account, cut myself off from the virtual world, and carry around an address book but I am just as much of a tool as the next person and can't bring myself to take such drastic measures. I will, however, start with my pal Monica who is in PEI. I'll start this week. I may send her only one line notes. I may send her near novels. I may only send her a photograph. But the feeling you get when you receive something in the mail with a hand written address on the envelop is incomparable to anything else. The content doesn't matter as much as you'd think.
Being judgemental is a really hard habit to break. Giving people a chance is something I have a hard time with. I'm too quick to form opinions and it sometimes takes me a while to push myself to look past these first judgements (although, call it intuition, call it narrow mindedness, but I have found that nine times out of ten, I am correct). I'm not sure why it is that I let these first impressions take hold of me. Somebody doesn't even have to utter a word and I have an image of who they are or must be and I need to stop thinking in this fashion. Not only do I need to stop jumping to opinions about others, but I need to stop judging myself. I need to take it easy on everyone.
Sigh. All this seems to be easier said than done.
But, to be honest, I'm not going to do anything about any of it at this moment because it is past midnight and I work in the morning.
So, happy new years to all y'all, 11 days in.
Good luck with sticking to your resolutions like washing your bedding regularly. Clean sheets are the stuff dreams are made of.
night.
XOXO
gossip girl
When I did my Canada World Youth exchange, before the Cubans came to Canada, they had to learn how to use escalators and were put on some sort of simulator in Havana. Before they got off the airplane in Toronto, they had never seen the real deal before.
I think secretly, my escalator promise was a way of resoluting to try and lose weight without actually vocalizing this wish (I sometimes tend to revolt against pop culture or the norm while harbouring a secret desire to be just like everyone else. Only sometimes though.) The only time since then that I've been forced to ride the "lazy staircase" was when I broke my shoulder snowboarding shortly after making said resolution and I decided it was probably a better idea to swallow my pride than to wind up with a second broken limb or worse yet, a bruised ego.
Since I'd been so diligent in sticking to my vow for the past two years, I decided that this year I would take a leap of faith (in myself), and make two resolutions:
1).write more letters (specifically hand written but I also get points for emails)
and
2).stop being judgemental (about others and also, myself)
Both of these are hard for me to do. I don't actually remember the last time I mailed something out that wasn't a bill and even that has now been made accessible online therefore furthering the redundancy of the written word and the postage stamp alike. With tools like myspace and now the ever popular (and rising) facebook and twitter (the latter of which I do not subscribe, thank you very much)have given us the resources to know what every person we ever wanted to know anything about is up to at any given moment therefore TKOing the email all together. What do you write to someone you already know everything about and that knows everything about you? Nothing is left up to the imagination anymore. A few years ago, my friends and I used to email each other multiple times a day; like passing notes in class except this was post graduation and we were all who knows where in the world. We would send each other jokes, and anecdotes and photos of out latest outfits. Now with the
to-the-second updates provided by online networking tools, this has been deemed unnecessary. The only emails I receive these days are from Sephora, telling me about the new deals I can get on make up I can't afford and CWY alumni updating me on what the orgnisation is doing for the world. (Oh, and my mother when I don't answer her succession of phone calls). The one person from whom receive the occasional email and who I look forward to hearing from is my nearly 98 year old grandfather who, once upon a time, used to send me hand written letters in the mail.
If I were truly going to hold on tight and take the power back, I would cancel my facebook account, cut myself off from the virtual world, and carry around an address book but I am just as much of a tool as the next person and can't bring myself to take such drastic measures. I will, however, start with my pal Monica who is in PEI. I'll start this week. I may send her only one line notes. I may send her near novels. I may only send her a photograph. But the feeling you get when you receive something in the mail with a hand written address on the envelop is incomparable to anything else. The content doesn't matter as much as you'd think.
Being judgemental is a really hard habit to break. Giving people a chance is something I have a hard time with. I'm too quick to form opinions and it sometimes takes me a while to push myself to look past these first judgements (although, call it intuition, call it narrow mindedness, but I have found that nine times out of ten, I am correct). I'm not sure why it is that I let these first impressions take hold of me. Somebody doesn't even have to utter a word and I have an image of who they are or must be and I need to stop thinking in this fashion. Not only do I need to stop jumping to opinions about others, but I need to stop judging myself. I need to take it easy on everyone.
Sigh. All this seems to be easier said than done.
But, to be honest, I'm not going to do anything about any of it at this moment because it is past midnight and I work in the morning.
So, happy new years to all y'all, 11 days in.
Good luck with sticking to your resolutions like washing your bedding regularly. Clean sheets are the stuff dreams are made of.
night.
XOXO
gossip girl
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