The conventional wisdom on New Year's resolutions is that no one keeps them. Gym passes purchased on December 31 are buried in the glove box by February, vows to quit smoking are broken after the first stressful week of the year...you get the picture.
So my strategy for 2018 was simple: I'll make lots of resolutions, of varying ambition, and then I'm bound to stick to at least a couple of them. We're more than a third of the way through 2018...let's see how it's going so far.
1. Blog once per week
Rats, we're starting off with one where I'm falling short. My intentions were good! After all, I like to think, I like to write, and one or two people tell me they like to read what I write...ergo, I thought I should blog more. Well, I was doing ok through January, but quickly fell back into my usual pattern: a devotional every week (which I specified would not count for this resolution), a reading log every month (which would)...and that's about it.
Turns out, it takes a little more free time, a little more discipline, and a little more want-to in order to get a blog post up every week. But hey, you're reading one right now. Progress!
2. Talk to every member of my family once a week
I've been keeping this one...at least the way I remembered stating it. Unfortunately, I remembered it incorrectly. I thought the resolution was "talk to a member of my family [any member] on a daily basis." Thing is, I tended to pick the same couple of family members, which meant weeks might go by without me talking to the others.
Half credit.
3. Read the Bible in a year
Yay, my first successful resolution! Following a plan from Christianity.com (the first one that came up when I Googled "read the Bible in a year"), I started on January 1 with Genesis 1 and am currently midway through 2 Chronicles, having never gotten more than a day behind schedule. Since the point of this resolution was simply to read the Bible, not intensely study it, I've been reading from The Message by Eugene Peterson most of the time, which has made familiar stories come alive in new ways and helped me more easily understand less familiar stories. It's not a good translation for studying (because it's a paraphrase, not a translation), but it's great for reading.
4. Drink more water
One of my easiest resolutions, and one of my most abject failures. Never even started taking this one seriously. Sigh.
5. Complete the Navy SEAL workout (minus the swimming portion)
Did exactly one workout of the required push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, and running for week one of the program. Was still sore two days later, so I decided to give it another day before resuming the program. And here I am, having still not resumed the program.
But hey, it's going to be 95+ degrees from now until September, so odds are I'll get back on the horse soon, right? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
6. Give half my entertainment money to charity
Check. I mentioned in my initial post that I wanted to give based on the people groups listed in Matthew 25—the hungry/thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned—so I chose these organizations and causes:
- For the hungry and thirsty, the Texas Baptist Hunger Offering,
which helps fund over 130 hunger relief and development programs across
the state and around the world.
- For the stranger, Buckner International, which (among
other amazing programs) is deeply involved in foster care and adoption for
children in need of safe, loving homes.
- For the naked, Mission Waco, which,
quoting their mission statement, provides "Christian-based, holistic,
relationship-based programs that empower the poor and marginalized"
of my city.
- For the sick, a Baylor medical missions trip to Pignon,
Haiti that occurred March 2-9 (for obvious reasons, I front-loaded my
giving to them instead of spacing it out over the 12 months of 2018.)
- For the imprisoned, Hospitality House in Huntsville, a free home-away-from-home for families visiting prisoners at the federal penitentiary.
These are all fabulous organizations and causes; please consider giving to them yourself.
This was one of the easier and more fun resolutions—how hard could it be for me to learn more about baseball? But other than reading more articles on FanGraphs during spring training and an article in the Athletic explaining ISO, I have put zero effort into this one.
But it's a long season, and my team is too terrible to waste all my baseball time on. So there's still hope.
8. Construct the perfect scorecard
I bought graph paper. So there's that.
9. Learn to cook 50 meals
This is the resolution for which I'm proudest of my progress, because I am right on schedule. One night per week I've made something new, from a simple Tex-Mex casserole to a pot of chili to garlic herb spaghetti with chicken meatballs. And while I still don't like to cook (pretty sure that's never going to happen), I think I may be getting ever so slightly better in the kitchen. I curse less, anyway.
Favorite recipe so far: probably Swedish meatballs, which was the perfect balance of being completely new to me but also delicious. Least favorite: peach whiskey chicken. First I forgot to turn the oven on after making all the necessary preparations, meaning it went into the freezer that night and we went out. Then, when I did finally cook it, I realized that in halving the recipe I'd forgotten to divide one ingredient by two: the whiskey. After taking one bite, let's just say that was not a dish I was comfortable eating at noon on a weekday, much less serving my toddler. You win some, you lose some.
10. Finish all my comic books/graphic novels
Probably my easiest resolution, and I'm right on target. Should be done by the end of August if my estimate is correct (and I don't buy anything new.)
11. Write a book
Ha. Ha. Ha.
12. Learn biblical Greek, biblical Hebrew, Latin, and German
I brought my Greek and Hebrew textbooks home from the office, where they have rested dutifully in my nightstand waiting to be opened. They're still waiting.
I did get an added dose of motivation this past week, however, with Baylor's Board of Regents officially approving the PhD in Preaching program that prompted this resolution. The inaugural class will begin in 2019, so the countdown to me learning/relearning these languages has begun. Probably ought to open those textbooks now.
13. Learn Spanish
I got the Duolingo app and used it for 2 days. So, you know, better than I've done with the other languages.
So by my count, I'm 4.5 for 13...not too shabby, but hopefully I can turn things around on a few more and get above 50% by the end of the year. I'll check back in around September and we'll see how these resolutions are going by then. Who knows, maybe I'll be writing that blog post in German by then!
[Narrator: He won't be.]
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