Happy New Year. With every new year comes the excitement and goal setting for the upcoming year. Everyone is anxious to throw out the old year and usher in the new one. Whether your previous year was good or bad, everyone is ready for a change. Everyone insists they can be better in the year to come. And with that, along come the infamous New Year’s Resolutions.

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. I haven’t in several years.

Every year millions of people list all of the things they want to accomplish in the New Year. They want to lose weight. They want to be happier, healthier, and accomplished. I used to be one of those people. Every year I would sit down with my journal and list the things I would change for the following year. The list was never long. It usually only consisted of four or five items. Most years had to do with being happier, working out more, and writing more. I would promise myself that I would accomplish my goals, and for the first few weeks I would stick to the plan. Then, like most people, by late February I would give up. As a result, one year I gave it all up. My New Year’s resolution was to not have any resolutions. And it worked. That was the first year I was successful. It’s been that way ever since.

Instead, I jot down a list of things I want to accomplish in general and leave it in my planner. These items on this list are goals I have for life; short and long term goals. I cross them off when they have been accomplished. I only make a list to keep me at ease. If I have a clear hard copy of want I need to do, I feel better equipped to handle it.

You could say that trying to start a blog is, in a way, a resolution. It’s more or less a goal to keep writing. I used to write all the time when I was younger. I started in elementary school with diaries. I would write about my day and who I had a crush on at school. I started writing short stories to fill the time and to entertain myself. In middle school, I would fill notebooks with my thoughts on the world around me. I could write for hours and hours. Because my middle school days were filled with adolescent trauma and drama, these notebooks are the most interesting to read. By the time I got to high school, I wrote very infrequently. I was caught up in boys and being angry at the world. No time to write.

With that said, I hope to usher in 2010 the way I do every year; with no specific set goals to reach in a limited 52 weeks.

Here’s to a happy and healthy new year.