Last year I decided to keep my new year resolutions as private as possible. I had realized that announcing them to the world was not helping at all, people would go ‘that sounds great’ or ‘wow’ and I would actually endup feeling good, despite doing nothing :P So last year I put down a few things I wanted to do over the year on my comp and looked at the list regularly.

Below are few of the resolutions I had planned:

1) Books – Read 1 book every month of the year – ⇩
I got nowhere close to 12 books. Just the two (I can remember) – Sophie’s World and The Old Man and The Sea.
Coupled by purchasing the highest number of books I have ever bought in a year, I am now in a dire situation of having about 5 unread books to every read book :( Need to work on that ratio.

2) Trips – Do one trip every month – ⇑
I traveled to varied locations this year. From the beautiful backwaters of the God’s own country to the fabulous Taj to the soothing Shimla to the rejuvenating hills of the south.
I had to walk away from a couple of trips this year and that was painful… Hope I get to see more beautiful places this year.

3) Blog – Blog regularly (atleast twice every three days) – ⇑
With over 200 posts in 2008 this specific resolution seemed like a piece of cake :) Over the last few months of the year my rate of blogging improved helping the figures but it has been a very consistent year for blogging (Will post the detailed stats in the next couple of posts)

4) Writing – Write a short story every month – ⇩⇩
This has to be my biggest failure this year. I started writing two stories over the year, finished neither. With a couple of writing projects in the horizon I should be able to fix this soon.

5) Going Social – Be more Social (vague? I know) – ⇑
My genral idea with this resolution was too meet more people and move away from being that shy guy who speaks to nobody. Honestly this was one of the best incremental improvements over the year. I have become more comfortable talking to strangers and more socially open in the last year. It started with the new year’s party last year and added on with smaller meetings and parties.

The best measure according to me was when I went for my first script writing class. In a room with 10 stangers is pretty scary place for a really shy person, but I was very comfortable at the very first meeting and hit off well with the other participants :)

6) Music– Learn a Instrument – ⇩⇩
In a year that so many of my friends picked up an instrument(read: the guitar) I was always thinking of learning and never trying. I knew that I didnt fancy the 6 string but that only added to the failure I guess. Anyway a good lesson that the first step is the toughest :)

7) Fitness – Become more physically and mentally fit – ⇑
This has been a ironic year for fitness. I started the year exercising and running regularly. The pace slowed a bit sometimes(mostly during trips) but I consistently did my 6 day/week workouts. I remained healthy but my weight did not move.

Then came a bike accident that caused an injury on my right knee and made exercise very difficult (I actually did a good workout on the day after the accident… The pain killers were great :P ) If an accident happened because of your negligence and you are charged for OUI, contact an experienced lawyer who will explain your options after an OUI and help you out of the situation. Or, if the personal injury occurs due to accidents, personal injury lawyers for hire can be checked out!  This translated to a month of no exercise, resulting in me gaining 7 kgs! On the flipside I hated my days, nothing is good if you dont get a nice jog and workout in the morning. I have now resumed the schedule(isnt as perfect as earlier but could be much more worse) and my weight has stabilized at the new level. So all in all its a bit of a success :)

For 2009 I have a bunch of new more realistic resolutions. Hopefully there will be more ⇑ than ⇩ next year :)