Hey, Hey, Its 2009!

Well we’re already a couple of days into 2009 and I have yet to write up any of my goals/resolutions for the upcoming year. So here are a few of my 2009 resolutions. I tried to stay away from losing weight, getting healthier, or getting all A’s types of goals because I don’t find the old standbys all that interesting. As a result, the following are not very good “goals” per se, because they lack the good goal element of being explicitly measurable. With their weakness in mind, the following are three quick mindset resolutions/goals for the new year:

1. Treat School Like Its My Job

I should be spending the balance of standard business hours working on school related projects. I haven’t really done this in the past, but I aim to change this in 2009. No more sleeping in for no reason. I plan to get up at 6 am Monday through Friday as if I were going to work. This shouldn’t be much of a problem for me as I have no problem waking up early. I have difficulty doing school work at night when there are more distractions around and I’m hoping this new schedule will help.

I usually do my homework at . . . home, but that also seems to lead to procrastination¹. Because of this I might have to set up an off site “office” somewhere where I can better concentrate. My workspace at home might still work, so I will play it by ear.

2. Treat My Job Like School

I work for a Judge in a Federal Court. The work that I do at the District Court is far more intellectually stimulating and exciting than my actual law school classes. With that in mind, I want to learn as much as I possibly can while I’m in this position. Maybe I should be taking notes.

3. Turn Back the Clock on My Ambition

I used to be much more ambitious, and less apathetic. I guess I’m trying to “care” more. Its not that I have no ambition, but rather, I’ve decided most qualitative processes are essentially arbitrary. Therefore found it hard to care about the subjective evaluations that are a part of everyday life. I want to² care a bit more about these evaluations for that reason: they occur every day of your life. In a cost benefit analysis I recently ran, it seemed that caring was better than not caring. At least in this case. Enter this nearly impossible to measure resolution.

I thought I would write more about each of these categories, but they all seemed to be pretty self-explanatory so in the interests of brevity I think I’ll leave them short. There you have it, three flimsy and hard to measure resolutions for the next year. Hopefully I will find a way to prove I accomplished these by the time 2010 rolls around.

2009 : Sure to be at least a mediocre year.