The concept of accomplishment and New Year's Resolutions

Pre-Victorian England had some pretty gigantic flaws when it came to the way women were treated and used, but there was one aspect of raising women (and, to an extent, men) in that era which seems to have fallen by the wayside to our general detriment - the idea that being accomplished is an attractive trait and should be cultivated; in fact I think it needs to be brought back bigger, better, and for both sexes.

Everyone should be accomplished. Everyone should have at least a skill or two (or many, many more) that they can look at and say "I am good at doing this, and being able to do this increases my sense of self-worth as well as my value to others."

I have rarely made any New Year's Resolutions that have proved to have any value. A few years ago I resolved to not buy anything that was not strictly necessary - the resolution lasted for six months, saved me a great deal of money, and helped to establish a sense of frugality in me; thus far it has been my best resolution. Last year I made four resolutions: to be able to do hand-stand pushups, to publish an article on Cracked.Com, to improve my command of German and French, and to walk the distance from Hobbiton to Isengard (1664) miles by the end of the year. Well, my doctors have told me that because of my poor damaged back I should never do hand-stands (and rarely do push-ups), I have started this blog instead of trying to publish on Cracked, my German is much better (when reading) and my French is slightly improved, and I've walked 513 miles in 2013. While I have not done everything that I wanted to, I have made steps in the right direction and continue to strive for improvement and, I think, continue to improve.

I don't actually like New Year's Resolutions - it's a system that is set up for failure. People either think "oh, I messed up on the second day, I might as well quit now" or "I have a whole year, there's no need for me to get started yet" when it comes to meeting their goals. It is because of this that I propose accomplishment as a goal: determine to improve the accomplishments you already have and to introduce yourself to at least one new skill or idea each year and decide whether or not you'd be interested in mastering it.

There are a few things I'm working on now - I'd like to be a better poet, better writer, better artist, better photographer, better dancer, better musician, more efficient employee, improve my financial habits, improve my health, and explore new things. None of these are binary resolutions, and none of them are mutually exclusive. I can do all of these things at once, focus on them for a week at a time each, or ignore some for now and focus on the things that need the most work. Best of all, there's no failure - if I work at all, even only for one day this year, to get better at dancing then I will be better at dancing than I was before.

So that's my proposal for mating Accomplishment with Resolution: determine what you like about yourself and do more of it, determine what you don't like about yourself and to less of it, and overall attempt to make yourself into your own vision of an ideal human.

Don't go with the "lose weight," "go to the gym," "eat a salad for lunch," resolutions - those are cheap and stupid and likely to fail. Instead resolve to be a better version of yourself and work on the things that you enjoy in order to make it happen.

A final note on accomplishment - one of my favorite Heinlein quotes is as follows: "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

There is no expiration date on self improvement. You can always learn to do something, and what you do know how to do you can always learn to do better.

So happy New Year, go forth and kick ass.
Cheers,
     - Alli