Another year, another blog post; more than one each year would be extravagant, right? Once again I’ve not published anything on this site since the first day of the last year. Will I do any better this year? Probably not, but you never know.
I’ve not much to say about the year gone by. I travelled more than usual (or at least spent more time in aeroplanes), spent more time with family than usual, went on more dog walks than usual. But otherwise nothing particularly significant happened. Not a bad year, but just another year.
Instead of New Year Resolutions, last year I set myself some forfeits and rewards for certain actions.
First, I needed to lose weight. To that end I decided to avoid takeaway meals eaten alone; eating with other people was OK as the presence of other people stops me overeating to an extreme degree. My forfeit / rewards was:
I pledge to match any spending on takeaways that I eat alone in charitable donations. Because I want to donate some money I need a reward – if I manage to go the full year without any takeaways alone I will donate £1000.
Mission accomplished! I didn’t have a single takeaway meal on my own, so I will be donation £1000 to a charity to be determined. The downside is that I probably still managed to end the year heavier than I started, so I need to try something else.
By the end of 2018 I will reduce my weight to 100kg or lower. I’ve not decided what my forfeit will be yet, but it needs to be something fairly extreme. I have decided an intermediate goal and a consequence for missing the target by a long way. I can’t see the next Star Wars film until I’ve reached a weight of 115kg or below. I won’t say what the consequence will be if at the end of the year I am still above 115kg, but it is definitely something I don’t want; if you know me personally feel free to ask.
I also wanted to reduce the amount of unnecessary spending on things that I don’t really need. The forfeit for this was:
10% of my spending in this category will be donated to charities.
I don’t think I bought much less than any other year, unfortunately, but at least it will add to the £1000 that I’m already committed to donating. I’ve yet to work out the total yet, but I’m sure it’ll come to several hundred pounds. Although I failed I do like this idea, so I’m going to do it again this year.
I passed my grade 3 violin examination, but for a variety of reasons the regularity of my playing has dropped off significantly. I still want to play, but I’m not currently working towards grade 4.
Outside of work, I didn’t set up any mentoring. However it’s still something I want to do, and I know other people who have expressed an interest in doing the same, so maybe this year…
All that remains is to wish you all a happy 2018.