How I’m Being Deliberate

On 12th January, I posted about my goal for 2015. My goal was this:

“I commit to try and be deliberate in my actions.”

Something deliberate is done consciously and intentionally. To me, being deliberate meant being mindful of my actions and decisions, and choosing my actions deliberately — rather than finishing my day realising I had moved through the paces of that day without being conscious of what I was doing and why I was doing it. I would take more ownership and accountability of my days and how I spend my time, while at the same time, accepting and owning those times when I chose to do nothing productive and simply be.

While not 100% constant, I have been successful in living deliberately most of this year so far, and look forward to continuing this for the rest of 2015. And I have learned that part of me living deliberately is knowing what not to try and do, so that I don’t set myself up for continual failure when I can’t do everything that I want to.

That’s where you come in. I’m not committing to posting any more on this blog in 2015. I might post again, I might not. But it’s not in my scope of things to do. At the moment, I don’t benefit enough from doing so to make it worth doing. I’m keeping the blog, and I’ll probably use it again in the future, but for now, it’s about me in the present. I have some looking after myself to do.

330 days in pictures… and counting

330 days ago, I started my second year-long photo project, to take a photo a day for an entire year. Needless to say, I’ve missed a few days here and there, but I’m still on track to finish in a month. Here’s one photo from each of the last 12 weeks.



Why I don’t make New Year’s resolutions (and my goal for 2015, and how that’s different than a resolution)

I spent the weeks right before and after the new year celebrations telling people I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. Why? I’ve found that I’m better at sticking to short-term goals, and they give me a more realistic time frame and a way to measure my success at reaching those goals that I’m comfortable with.

However, I did something unusual last week: I realised I do have a goal that I’d like to work on for all of 2015. This goal is kind of like a way-of-life change, because it doesn’t have an end date, and I won’t stop doing it and start doing something else once I’ve reached this goal. In fact, it’s not even something to reach. That’s why I like it.

My goal: I commit to try and be deliberate in my actions.

What the heck does that mean? I’ve thought a lot about how I want to live my life, how best to approach the world and respond to it, and about my own personal character traits. I’d like to say that I deliberately choose to spend half the night staring into a small back-lit screen browsing photos and videos and articles instead of sleeping. I’d like to say that I don’t deliberately choose to spend my days off doing the perfect combination of relaxing and being productive. I’d like to say I do a lot of things differently than I do. But I don’t like that kind of negative, wistful “should have but didn’t” thinking. So instead, I’m making a change. Going forward, I will own my actions. Even the lazy, unproductive, boring ones. I’m making a choice to own my actions, and be deliberate about what I do. I know that I don’t have control over everything, and that sometimes I’ll spend my time doing one thing and then wish I had done it differently, so my commitment is to try. To make an effort. I’m not saying that I will do everything perfectly, or that I won’t make mistakes–I’m saying that I’ll take ownership of whatever it is that I say and do. And by making this commitment, I’ll also learn a lot about who I am, why I do what I do, and I’ll be more mindful of my actions and decisions.

I look forward to being able to post here a year from now that I have spent a year being deliberate.

What I Didn’t (and did) Read in 2014

I began 2014 with the best of intentions and started off the year well, reading several books in the first few months. Then it petered out, distractions overcame, and I didn’t fight them. I still read, but I didn’t give myself the dedicated time to read that I did the year before. Let’s see how my reading list looks for 2014:

–1biography or memoir or literary journalism
Brandon Stanton’s book Humans of New York

–1 educational nonfiction/how-to book
Change Your Thinking by Sarah Edelman
The One-Minute Manager Meets the Monkey by Ken Blanchard

–1 historical novel
The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis
The Engagements by J. Courtney Sullivan

–2 books by authors I’ve never read
The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Euginides
The Secret Lives of Dresses by Erin McKean
Little Coffee Shop of Kabul by Deborah Rodriguez
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of a Window and
Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
The Bookstore by Deborah Meyler
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

–2 books by authors I’ve read and want more of
Odd One Out by Monica McInerney
Lola’s Secret by Monica McInerney
Light Shining in the Forrest by Paul Torday

–2 books by local authors
Cloudstreet by Tim Winton
Dirt Music by Tim Winton

–1 children’s book
Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss

–6 books of poetry
See How We Almost Fly by Alison Luterman
Horoscopes for the Dead poetry by Billy Collins

–3 short story collections
–1 book in a new field of interest
–1 book on craft
–2 classics
–1 re-read
–1 book of great heft
–2 literary journals
–1 travel writing
–1 humorous book

Actually, 20 books isn’t bad at all. I might revisit what this reading list looks like before I commit to it for 2015, to set a more realistic goal based on what I enjoy reading most.

How I’m Beginning a New Year of Daily Photos

Yes that’s right, ten days ago I started taking a photo each day. My goal is to complete a second year of daily photos, and to post the highlights on here. I just recently compiled my first photo-a-day project into a slideshow of all 365 photos and posted it on Facebook. This of course inspired me to do it all again!

This is one of my favourites from this past week. I discovered these two post-it notes on my bulletin board at work one morning, drawn by two of my teammates. Made my morning! I love that I am part of such a diverse, interesting, and engaging team of people. And I love that we value taking time out of our day to draw pictures for each other on post-its.