I only have 2 this year. And they don't really involve any real "goals" or milestones like going to the gym or whatever. They are:
1) No (LESS) swearing
2) No sympathy
Number 1 is not as straightforward as it seems. (Actually neither of them are straightforward.) So I've always been a pretty vulgar guy. But now it has come to the vulgarities make up more than half of my casual conversations, which limits the things I actually want to express verbally.
But knowing the type of person I am, I can't really "give up" something so intrinsic to my self-image. Especially since it's already 4th Jan and I've already caught myself slipping much more than I thought I would. I knew this needed to be an interesting thing, or else I would get bored of it very soon. So I came up with a more fun alternative. Instead of not saying the word fuck itself, I would replace it with more kid-friendly swearing, like flip or fish (but not fish because even that sounds too kiddish). Here's the example I find to be the most appropriate.
I find this fun for some odd reason.
Here's the thing I think I need to clarify: I don't find swearing offensive. But I do feel that it has reached a level in my vocabulary where it is starting to replace other actually useful words. Which is why I'm toning it down a notch this year.
NUMBER 2.
This needs a bit of explanation. I have found myself, on multiple occasions, especially this past year, "making myself seem small" in an attempt to get more sympathy points. And it's quite a conscious, yet automatic response I seem to make, especially in school. I would say things like, "eh don't make my job harder leh" or just INTENTIONALLY lower my head and eyes a lot more in an obvious attempt to look weak. There are problems with this, of course. First, that it doesn't even actually work. Maybe one person in like 20+ attempts have come up to ask whether I'm fine, so I know that doesn't work. But more importantly, I apparently became a "senior" at some point and people start to put more weight in what I have to say. I only realized this when I kept making stupid jokes to this junior girl beside me (in the middle of a sort-of "crisis") and during debrief, she said I was being inappropriate and not solving the crisis since I was a senior. I NEVER connected the dots until pretty much 2014, which was weird.
I think that doing all those "shrinking" body language thing is ultimately detrimental, both to the self-image but also to the bigger overall picture. It (the mentality) shirks responsibility away from myself, and starts to seek out "I hope you get better"s and "Good try though"s.
So anyway, here are my 2 resolutions. I don't really know how to measure them.
In other news, I've been watching Wolf Children
It's a crying movie that will make you appreciate your mom a lot more. Especially that scene where she's hopping on the spot, struggling to decide whether to visit the doctor or the vet to cure her son who ate some silica gel. It's not a metaphor, the kids really are both wolves and humans. But if you can't get over the fact that she's pretty much super jesus who can do anything, then you probably shouldn't watch this.
Also this,
Summer Wars
It's basically the Digimon Movie (which I have sitting in my hard drive just WAITING to be watched) with a nice sounding female lead. It's entertaining and not very deep, which is kind of like the ultimate summer movie. It's why we watch Avengers anyway.
