A couple of people asked me what my New Years Resolutions are, expecting something like "exercise more" and "procrastinate less." This year, like all of the past years, I don't. I've never been one much for NYRs. Not really a pretentious "I don't NEED the crutch" thing. Okay, maybe it is. But at least I can support it!
Trying to explain the idea behind NYRs would be just illustrating the obvious. Nonetheless, as a terrible illustrator I desperately need the practice. We see years as discrete units, 2012 separated from 2011 by a vast, insurmountable gulf. The new year is a chance to see the world in an entirely new light, turning a symbolic beginning into a new one. We see this in a lot of places- moving to college is a big one, as is the beginning of a quarter.
My issues with NYR stem from the same source. By being such a symbolic change, it ties the idea of making real changes to itself. We do not think of making resolutions on Christmas or Presidents Day or the beginning of a month. It's only New Years that has the Resolutions. Does New Years make us less likely to make other changes? I'd argue so. By so strongly associating one with the other, we lose our power to make resolutions at any time, at any place. Even if I really want to stop eating meat, I probably won't stop on a random Tuesday. This creates a time lag between having a resolution and implementing it. And lag time is the exact same as lost time.
The other problem is more pragmatic. One day a year is culturally associated with permanent change. If you can only make resolutions one day a year, what kind will you make? Big, sweeping ones, or small, specific ones? But change is not a discrete process. We can't say "I will now stop eating candy" and expect to hold it for the rest of the year. We'll be lucky to last a month. True change works best through small, manageable, and cumulative changes. These are the changes we won't make, because we don't want to "miss a change".
Most people drop their sweeping New Years Resolutions within months, if not weeks. I'd say it's better to not think about grand and sudden changes and focus on making small changes all of the time. Sure, grand changes can be useful, but they have their time and place. Giving it a specific time and a specific place just makes it artificial.
On a sidenote, I'm saying that many small changes = good. This is actually a new thing for me. I'm failing so many of the Millennium Goals (post up later) I've started exploring new structures of self improvement. We'll see how this fares. And I'll put my money where my mouth is, and start a small change right now: from now on, I will update this blog once a week. In the immortal words of Ke$ha: let’s go-o-o (Let’s go)
Monday, December 26, 2011
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Glimpses of the Past
Last week was finals week. Like everyone else around here, I had two goals. One: convince everybody I was studying really hard. Two: not study. I emailed a bunch of people I hadn't talked to in a while. I went downtown a couple of times to "clear my mind". I revised an already-submitted paper "just in case". Then, lacking anything else to do, I started Googling random things. Eventually I searched an old username of mine and, unsurprisingly, I got a hit.
Finding the old post wasn't unusual. I mean, I've been posting on forums since I was ten. I've left a data trail a mile wide. Bit what struck me was the content. 16 year-old me wrote a long self description. He detailed his incredible abilities, his intense antisocialness, and his cold logical thinking. "It is always better," he proudly wrote, "to kill one person than let ten die."
Oy.
I want to go back in time so I can meet him, and then punch him in the face. For all his bragging about his pragmatic ruthlessness, he was a pretty terrible fighter. I mean, he couldn't even do a pushup. And I'm pretty sure that his ego was even more fragile than 19 year-old me. And that guy went on a two day depression bender because nobody laughed at one of his skits.
Still, I'm incredibly glad I found that sample. I had no idea I changed that much in four years. It's one thing to constantly wax poetic about self-improvement, quite another to see it happen. Since then I've been obsessively tracking down everything else I can find. I'm constructing a timeline from old chat logs, pictures, and posts. Slowly, agonizingly, the picture emerges. My prior stupidity left gaping holes. I remember being proud of how good I was at avoiding pictures. I remember gleefully picking usernames that would be impossible to search. I remember wiping my hard disks "so nobody could learn more about my past." I was wanted to look mysterious. I was an idiot.
Even so, it's possible to see some patterns. The growth is subtle and continuous, a long chain of imperceptible changes that add up over time. Age 14 me is the same as age 15 me is the same as age 16, but the two ends are slightly different. On the other hand, upheavals can cause incredibly rapid change. Between 12 and 13 I moved to another state. The growth quickly follows. But really, did we expect anything else?
A lot of my dialogues on self-improvement are entirely philosophical. Now I have real world data. It's not much, but at least it's something. Looking at it, it seems improvement happens in one of two ways. One, it's gradual and imperceptible, something you only realized happened when you look back on your past self. Alternatively, it can be sudden, rapid, and extremely painful. It's either long and boring or agonizing. Often it's both. Not that appealing, is it?
Nobody ever said it was easy. Trying to consciously improve as a person is the most difficult thing I've ever done. I have to stare hard at my failings, dig out the ingrained bad habits, and push the limits of my comfort zones. I have to constantly question myself and never, ever, ever be satisfied with my successes. It's hard and slow and it hurts all the time. I know people who refuse to consider it, and while I find this completely incomprehensible the idea is sometimes very, very tempting. But now I can see how far I've come. I know for sure there's a light at the end of the tunnel, because I've been in tunnels before and found that light. And if it hurts, well, it hurt before. I got over it.
I wonder how much these patterns I see are influenced by my own biases. I've talked about external events breaking stagnation. Did this make me want to see the upheavals as causing growth? Or did I already know about the upheavals and unconsciously worked that into the externals? They could be the same, all externals upheavals. In that case, we are one step closer to consciously triggering periods of growth. At the same time, we have to accept that such periods will be quite an ordeal.
I head back to Michigan on the 20th. Once in my parents' home I can kick this project into high gear, scouring old photobooks and reading stories and search for diaries. If I'm really lucky I'll be able to contact people from my New Jersey days. I'm seriously regretting leaving so little behind. But I'll do my best to get it all, and I won't be making the same mistake again.
Finding the old post wasn't unusual. I mean, I've been posting on forums since I was ten. I've left a data trail a mile wide. Bit what struck me was the content. 16 year-old me wrote a long self description. He detailed his incredible abilities, his intense antisocialness, and his cold logical thinking. "It is always better," he proudly wrote, "to kill one person than let ten die."
Oy.
I want to go back in time so I can meet him, and then punch him in the face. For all his bragging about his pragmatic ruthlessness, he was a pretty terrible fighter. I mean, he couldn't even do a pushup. And I'm pretty sure that his ego was even more fragile than 19 year-old me. And that guy went on a two day depression bender because nobody laughed at one of his skits.
Still, I'm incredibly glad I found that sample. I had no idea I changed that much in four years. It's one thing to constantly wax poetic about self-improvement, quite another to see it happen. Since then I've been obsessively tracking down everything else I can find. I'm constructing a timeline from old chat logs, pictures, and posts. Slowly, agonizingly, the picture emerges. My prior stupidity left gaping holes. I remember being proud of how good I was at avoiding pictures. I remember gleefully picking usernames that would be impossible to search. I remember wiping my hard disks "so nobody could learn more about my past." I was wanted to look mysterious. I was an idiot.
Even so, it's possible to see some patterns. The growth is subtle and continuous, a long chain of imperceptible changes that add up over time. Age 14 me is the same as age 15 me is the same as age 16, but the two ends are slightly different. On the other hand, upheavals can cause incredibly rapid change. Between 12 and 13 I moved to another state. The growth quickly follows. But really, did we expect anything else?
A lot of my dialogues on self-improvement are entirely philosophical. Now I have real world data. It's not much, but at least it's something. Looking at it, it seems improvement happens in one of two ways. One, it's gradual and imperceptible, something you only realized happened when you look back on your past self. Alternatively, it can be sudden, rapid, and extremely painful. It's either long and boring or agonizing. Often it's both. Not that appealing, is it?
Nobody ever said it was easy. Trying to consciously improve as a person is the most difficult thing I've ever done. I have to stare hard at my failings, dig out the ingrained bad habits, and push the limits of my comfort zones. I have to constantly question myself and never, ever, ever be satisfied with my successes. It's hard and slow and it hurts all the time. I know people who refuse to consider it, and while I find this completely incomprehensible the idea is sometimes very, very tempting. But now I can see how far I've come. I know for sure there's a light at the end of the tunnel, because I've been in tunnels before and found that light. And if it hurts, well, it hurt before. I got over it.
I wonder how much these patterns I see are influenced by my own biases. I've talked about external events breaking stagnation. Did this make me want to see the upheavals as causing growth? Or did I already know about the upheavals and unconsciously worked that into the externals? They could be the same, all externals upheavals. In that case, we are one step closer to consciously triggering periods of growth. At the same time, we have to accept that such periods will be quite an ordeal.
I head back to Michigan on the 20th. Once in my parents' home I can kick this project into high gear, scouring old photobooks and reading stories and search for diaries. If I'm really lucky I'll be able to contact people from my New Jersey days. I'm seriously regretting leaving so little behind. But I'll do my best to get it all, and I won't be making the same mistake again.
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