Resolutions for 2011

I hadn't really thought of any resolutions for this year, and I wasn't planning to do any, but a few ideas came to me earlier today, so I thought it would be good to write them down:

1. Focus on my own faults and overlook others. The only things I can change are my own bad qualities, so why waste time pointing out others'?

2. See God in every person and act accordingly. Each person holds God within him- or herself, and I need to remember that constantly.

3. Write in my journal at least once a week.

4. Work out at least once a week.

5. Be less quick to anger and indignation and be more patient, loving, and tolerant. Give others, and the world, the benefit of the doubt.

6. Be more decisive.

7. Recite one of the many slokas I know once a week. It's not that hard. Do it.

8. Be more productive.

9. Read this every day to remind myself of my goals.

Here's to a year worth remembering, complete with [at least] two weddings (one for my sister, another for one of my oldest friends and college roommate), the end of my basic sciences curriculum in medical school, and my last real summer break.

Ostrich

Every once in a while I get to acting like an ostrich with its head in the sand. I get ensconced in my routine, used to the way I run my life, and fail to reach out and grab the chances offered to me. Meetings of interesting organizations go unattended, simple surveys unfilled, because I'm just used to the way I've settled into things, because Grey's Anatomy is on and I don't want to miss it. It's a ridiculous and infuriating tendency in me, this love of sitting back and relaxing. Life would be better if I were always on my toes, at the edge of my seat. When I was finishing college, I realized that though it might seem on paper that my hand was always in something or other (metaphorically, not literally), I really didn't do nearly as much as I could have or should have or might have.

Because of that realization, and because I don't want to have regrets when I graduate from medical school, I'm trying to live with the concept of doing more than you think you can. Like Imogen Heap sings in Tidal, I want to "do it for all the times we wished we had." And that means stretch myself academically, extra-curricularly, socially, and with new experiences. I've been doing all right so far, and it was especially easy to stretch myself out of some comfort zones while medical school was still new and fresh and I hadn't yet settled into a routine, but I'm finding myself edging towards that dangerous complacency now, and I want to avoid it.

Also like an ostrich with its head in the sand, I can be completely clueless sometimes. Case in point: this evening around 9:30 I realized that I had failed to attend the FIRST SESSION of an elective this afternoon. I was really excited about this elective, too: Art of the Human Body at the Museum of Fine Arts. But instead of going to it like a responsible student, I completely. Forgot. Instead, I took a two-hour nap this afternoon (glorious, but not exactly productive), studied some, cooked a tiny bit, and watched two premieres of two shows. I'm not saying it wasn't a good day overall. I'm just saying I need to get my head out of the sand (or my ass, or my routine) and take a look around every once in a while, because I miss important things when I get this way.