Happy New Year!

A new year is upon us, and with it, new hope. At least, that's the toast that I drank in Philadelphia early Tuesday morning. Hope for the world, for the country, for myself. Hope that this year will be better than the last. I don't want for hope. So what of it?

Well, I know the quote is a cliche by now, but Gandhi said, "Be the change you want to see in the world." I've believed in that sentiment for a long time, but I haven't gone about putting it into practice in my life. Well, that's my new year's resolution. I want to start being the change I want to see in the world. But first, as I've always realized (and never done anything about), I've got to be the change I want to see in myself.

For me, the first step in that process is the establishment of a routine. Of a lot of routines, actually, fitting into an overarching routine. This may seem trivial or easy to some people, but it's never been either for me. I've gotten good at doing the bare minimum of what I need to do in a lot of situations, and I've developed the bad habit of doing whatever I feel like doing whenever I feel like doing it. Example: "Boy, I should go grocery shopping, but it'd probably be easier to run down to the drive-thru and then pop in a movie." Needless to say, when that kind of logic works, it works tomorrow and next week, too.

Mundane as it sounds, the establishment of an ironclad routine for such everyday tasks as grocery shopping, laundry, housecleaning and exercise would be a big step for me. These changes may not represent the totality of the change I want to see in the world, but they're what's necessary for me to change in my life in order for me to even begin thinking about living up to a set of lofty ideals.

Fargus...

P.S. One bit of routine that went unmentioned above, but which I still intend to implement, is at least one blog post a day. And this one doesn't count.