setting goals

goal: more napping next to alpine lakes

Here we are. Already the seventh day of the new year and I've yet to make any promises. I've tried. I've started a NY Resolution post a few times, yet they fall flat. Maybe it's a mental backlash against implementing change merely because it is the beginning of a new calendar year.

Why is it we make the same promises at the beginning of each year? Losing weight, working out more, eating more sensibly, etc. Could it be because the new year happens during the darkest, starch-eatingest time of year? That it happens just after everyone has had their fill of cookies and chocolates and has attended multiple holiday get-togethers which involve sitting around eating foods we don't normally eat in quantities that we don't normally consume?

The holidays make the promise of a change in the new year seem less arbitrary, especially for people in Alaska and other cold, dark locales. Most people I know don't need to make self-improvement vows during the month of July. It's summer! We're super active. We're biking and hiking, running and paddling. We don't need to diet. (We might need to clean our houses, though.) Winter is when the body naturally wants to stock up. We want to sit on the sofa and read a book, or watch a movie and eat a bowl of popcorn. The human version of hibernating. At least that's how it sometimes feels. Yet we don't want to feel like sloths when it's time for the flurry of summer. Often I even embrace the winter.

I get outside a few times a week on my bike, skis or snowshoes. Yesterday, with possible freezing rain in the forecast, I opted for indoor workouts: Pilates class in the morning, then I set up my road bike on the stationary trainer and pedaled it for an hour. I've been doing my best to ignore the cookies, chips and chocolate that send their little signals over my wifi: "rose, we're still here." Thanks to the trainer, on Wednesday, it was me: 1; snacks: 0.

In the name of tradition, I will set some goals: I promise to enjoy life and to take good care of myself. I will appreciate the people in my life. I promise to ride bikes often & take time out to look at the world around me. I'll hike. I will try new things, travel new routes. I will gaze at the mountains. I will stop to watch the moose. I will do my best to look positively upon the new year and all it brings.

Thanks for stopping by.