Resolutions

It's a new year. 

Just shy of 24 hours old, and already the myriad media insist that with the new year a new me is necessitated. But I disagree.

Rather than a whole new me (my wife and kids are all type A personalities—as am I—so such drastic changes would not be so easily welcomed), I'd like to think that a few tweaks to the me of the present moment may suffice. So I've made two resolutions for the new year that permit a rippling of improvements across my life as a whole:

1) Ride more.

2) Write more.

Resolution #1 (riding more) is for me to get atop a bicycle three or more times each week. I'll not be too picky in order to leave the window open for commuting, riding the trainer, or riding on roads or trails. Naturally, the latter is my preference, but life has a bad habit of insisting on negotiating one's preferences. Somehow or other, then, I will be on my bike more in 2017 in order to be more active and more mindful of everything from breathing to diet to what ot is I think and feel about any particular subject. 

Riding like that was how I got through my undergraduate years in such a good frame of mind—and with such a high GPA. While there are no points awarded for being a good husband/father/teacher/what-have-you, riding more will allow me the necessary outlet to be better at all of those things. And each could use a bit or many bits of improvement. It's wonderful how far-reaching the simple act of straddling a bike can be. 

Writing is an area requiring even more attention than riding, despite my near-casual consistent pace on a bicycle these days as an English teacher, I should be writing more but tend to produce more excuses than prose (and certainly more than poetry) as to why I don't write more. Resolving to write more will serve as a requisite for staying off social media, thereby theoretically providing ample time to type out what I wish to say on whatever subject I wish to speak—all of which will be shared via social media, natch.

So there are my resolutions. With 2017 now 22 hours and 45 minutes old, I can say that I've managed to do both of my resolutions today. I eeked out 32 miles on the bike this morning and now have my first blog entry of the new year now almost complete. Yay me.

Happy new year, and thanks for reading.