My New Year's Resolutions: 15 Ways I'll Make 2016 Better Than 2015

 Remember yesterday when I said I would someday maybe write about my New Year's resolutions for this year? Well I'm doing it! Look at that, I'm already following through on my writing goals. I'm basically a saint.

So, 2015 was on the whole a pretty tense year. But one take away from all that stress is that The Serenity Prayer is super legit. The majority of the things that raise my blood pressure in life are people. People are just the worst. They are rude, selfish, stupid, and often simply abrasive characters in the story of my life. But here's the thing, I can't control those people. So, since I can't do away with the stressors that made 2015 a difficult year it seems my only option is to make myself better. If I can better equip myself to handle 2016 hopefully this time next year I'll be writing a blog post bragging about the better man I have become.

While at Urbana I made a list of New Year's Resolutions for 2016. Because I'm a compulsive organizer and am obsessed with round numbers I decided on fifteen things split into five different categories for different areas of my life. Those areas are Faith, Marriage, Friends, Work, and Gaming. You may think that's weird, but I don't care what you think. This is my blog and my list. So, without further ado, let's break this down.

My 2016 New Year's Resolutions:

 

Faith:

1. Be a more unified person. As in, not a Christian and a gamer and a writer, etc., but a Christian writer gamer, if that makes sense. I have a tendency to segment my life into to these little areas and try to avoid any crossover. That's super unhealthy and just plain impractical. This year I am going to work on bringing each area of my life together into one cohesive whole.

2. Meet up with God 1-on-1 every day. I work for a church and am married to a fellow Christian, so I spend a lot of time praying, reading the Bible, and focusing on God but very little time doing that on my own. This year I will work on doing those things alone and with more of a personal focus.

3. Find someone with whom I can pray and "get real" with. I'm married, which is super cool, but I find that the only person I have in my life to talk to about anything real or serious is my wife. But then who can I talk to if I'm having a hard time with my wife? Who do I go to? This year I will find someone, praying that God will put someone in my life.

 

Marriage:

4. Blog everyday in January. "What does that have to do with your marriage?" you ask, judging my lofty goals. Well, here's the deal. Marriage is hard. I've been married three and half years now and I'm still just barely figuring this whole thing out. Right now an issue I need to address in my marriage is my lack of self-care. I go and go focusing on work and my wife and whatever else but without time to care for myself I end up just going until I crash. This year I will write as a means of caring for myself.

5. Be more honest and vulnerable. You notice how it's kind of weird and awkward that I'm writing about my marriage and private thoughts? Yeah, that's me being vulnerable. I hate that now. I used to love being vulnerable on my blog. I loved not having to hide. But now Big Man Chris the Competent Adult is here and I don't feel safe. I need to be more vulnerable with my wife and I need to be more vulnerable in general. This year I will be more open and honest.

6. Figure out a more balanced lifestyle. God. Wife. Work. Self. Hobbies. Friends. Sleep. How do I balance these things? Heck if I know. Right now I elect to just not balance them. That's bad. This year I will find a healthy balance for my life.

 

Friends:

7. Focus on turning acquaintances into friendships and deepening the friendships I already have. I've managed to make some local friends this year. It only took me almost three years. Now I need to work on deepening those relationships. Remember how I said I'm bad at vulnerability now? Ick, this feels like vulnerability. This year I will get below surface level in my friendships.

8. Be more real on social media (and IRL I guess). I feel like this one crosses over into #1 and #5 on this list as well. I tend project a sterilized and acceptable image on social media, and also in real life. I need to be honest enough to put who I really am out there, and in order to that I need to let who I am be a unified self. This year I will be real.

9. Be more friendly in general. I'm turning 26 in a week and will officially be in my "late twenties." I'm an old man, you guys. Like, "get off my lawn," "kids these days" type old man. I'm grumpy and inaccessible. That's no good. I guess all three of my friend resolutions just boil down to bringing my shields down. This year I will be more friendly.

 

Work:

10. Be more confident and worry less what people think of me. Rumors are weapons and this year I've been on the receiving end a little bit. There's a certain social politics to church life, and therefore my work life, that I just can't abide by. Between facing some full powered passive aggression and people jockeying for "power" this year has been exhausting and taken a toll on my confidence. Things have just reached a point where I just have to be more confident in myself and ignore all the crap that gets thrown my way. This year I will be more confident in myself.

11. Remember to view my work as a ministry. So, I work at a church. That sucks. You'd think being a Christian and getting to work at a church would be amazing. But there's a major downside no one ever thinks about. If your pastor is actually your boss when do you ever get pastored? If church is your job, when do you get to do church for your own soul? Well, not a lot I've found. Despite that, I need to remember to view my work as a ministry. It's so easy to let burn out take hold just keep going for a paycheck, without remembering that I do actually love God and want this to be service to him. This year I will focus on my ministry as a ministry.

12. Work on interacting better with coworkers. Overall I have pretty good relationships with all my coworkers. Yet, as mentioned above, I'm not a very friendly guy. I could probably do a lot better in being friendly towards my coworkers.

 

Gaming:

13. Top 8 a Competitive REL event. So, this is a Magic: The Gathering goal. I'll write a post about this at some point, but I have gotten really into Magic and it's been doing good things for me. I'd like to go a competitive level event and be in the top 8 players. It's a simple goal, but one I'm excited about pursuing. This year I will Top 8 a competitive Magic event.

14. Figure out Twitch streaming. So, I created a Twitch account a little while for streaming my gaming. I like this idea because it allows me another creative outlet and will hopefully help me to connect more with the gaming community. Who knows, it might even help me raise money for my mission trip with Gamechurch too! I'm not saying I'll stream every day or anything, I just need to quit being lazy and just try it out. This year I will figure out Twitch.

15. This year I will do less "junk food" gaming and focus on more thoughtful gaming. As I mentioned earlier, I'm an old man now, or at least I will be in a week when I turn 26. Being an old man means that when I get home after a stressful day at work I want to veg out and just turn my brain off. Lame shooters and games I've already played 10 times are great for that. But are they great for me? Video games are an art form just like movies (yep, I said it) and like movies while it's okay to watch Dumb and Dumber sometimes you want to balance that with something a little more classy from time to time. So this year I am going to focus more on games that stimulate my brain with good story and human emotion, not just collections of explosions.

Bonus:

16.  Read more Kurt Vonnegut. Think more. Hey, it's 2016 so I threw in a bonus 16th resolution.

Whoa, look how long this post is! If you're still here you must be, like, my best fiend or something. High five! We should hang out and play some Magic. I'll be posting again tomorrow, assuming I'm willing to be a decent person. Then again, I work tomorrow (remember, when you work at a church Sundays are work days! Yay!) so I'll be bummed out and tired by the time I get home so the post might be shortish. Who knows? You will. Tomorrow. Be there.