2014 Resolutions

Posted on January 11, 2014 | by Jeremy Person

“The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.” — Paulo Coelho, Alchemist

2013 in Review:

Something I haven’t done in past resolutions is reflect on the past year. 2013 was one of my more difficult years, I have to admit. I even checked with Christina tonight to verify I wasn’t missing anything. In 2014, I’m ready to get some big wins again.

My cat Eclipse had to be put down
My dad had heart surgery
Lizzy walked
Tyler completed his first t-ball season
Tyler learned to ride a bike
Tyler started first grade
Rolled out a social network at work
After 14 great years, I was laid off at work
I completed the first draft of my online resume (plug)

Past resolutions:

2013 in review:

One of the first things I talked about at the start of 2013 was the number of blog posts I had shared with the world. At that time I was at 2,900 posts and as of today I am at 2,966 posts. I think I’m learning something that many of you were already aware of with blogging. I focused a lot of my energy on sharing many things I thought you would be interested in because I really enjoy sharing what I learn or discover in life. I’ll continue sharing but perhaps in another way. I’ve been working on a platform since 2008 that I have been obsessed with. A tool I use every day but know others won’t find value in as is today. With more dedicated personal time on my hands as of late, I’ve tried each day to make incremental improvements to it. I say all of this to reassure you that I haven’t lost my love of blogging, or sharing, but rather hope in 2014 I can share with you what I’ve been working on and how much I’ve contributed to the platform myself.

The next thing I discussed in my 2013 resolutions was I wanted to be able to do 50 consecutive push-ups. This goal hasn’t been accomplished for a number of reasons. The first is 50 consecutive push-ups is difficult, and difficult resolutions are often the most challenging to accomplish. The second is with two kids and everything life demands, focusing on something you would think you could work on at almost any time and any place just never took priority. My right arm has been nagging me as of late. I never had it looked at by a professional but back in high school I think I tore one of the muscles in my arm playing baseball. If I let my arm rest for a while, it doesn’t ache, but carrying around a 26 pound baby for extended lengths of time has aggravated it again. It isn’t a constant pain but flares up when my arm is stressed.

I also talked about taking more pictures. Interestingly, that hasn’t been happening as of late, and I’m not exactly sure why. I got a digital SLR camera which has broken once, I sent it back for repairs, and on a recent trip to Monterey it broke yet again. The SLR camera is great, but it is cumbersome to carry around, and I’ve never been happy with my point and shoot (especially once I got my SLR). I know I can’t “have my cake and eat it too” but somehow I became more disinterested in taking pictures.

I brought up “rocking the ping pong” and I think I did. Safeway buying a table and letting us play on Friday afternoons in an empty conference room was fantastic on so many levels. One of the more interesting and unexpected things I found as a result of playing ping pong at work was the opportunity to meet people you wouldn’t normally bump into. Managing Safeway’s intranet, you get to know a lot of people from a wide range of departments, but each department usually had certain employees I interacted with. Ping pong was great because I was able to play something I’ve always loved and have a great time with new people. One of my favorite things about ping pong in 2013 was playing with members of our team and seeing their skills evolve. There was a ping pong tournament towards the end of the year and due to part luck of the draw, and part determination I even made it into the finals (but lost). At the end of the day, it wasn’t so much about winning or losing for me, it was just getting a chance to have fun with colleagues. That isn’t to say I like to lose, I’m one of the most competitive people I know, but I will always remember all the great times we had.

Probably my least favorite resolution was making the bed each day in 2013. I don’t think I came anywhere close on this one, I have to be completely honest. If you go back to past resolutions you’ll see I seem to have this as a recurring resolution, but in 2014 I’m not including it. One of the things I’m learning is life gets busy, and you prioritize your time accordingly. Almost all of 2013 was incredibly busy and this will sound wrong, but I just had better things to do with my time (higher priorities) than worrying about if the bed was made.

Teach Tyler to ride a bike without training wheels. It took a lot of trials and tribulations but ladies and gentlemen I am proud to announce he did it. As a matter of fact, he’s actually outgrown the bike in the video and got a new 18″ bike for Christmas. Hard to believe he’ll be 7 years old in May.

Run a 5k with an average pace of less than 10 minutes a mile. I started this goal out with a vengeance, but just as I was about to run my first 5k I came down with a horrible cold. I wanted to still run the race, but Christina who is my wise advisor said I would be crazy (and she was right). The number one thing I would tell someone who starts running is no matter what…DON’T STOP! The reason being it is hard to start running because the first few weeks, or for me, months were horrible. There was pain and definitely fatigue, I just hated it. Eventually I started to get stronger and run farther but just as I was making progress I ran into an obstacle and I stopped. I tried running a few times after, but I let too much time elapse, and before I knew it I was back to the pain and fatigue phase and stopped for good the rest of the year.

2014 Resolutions:

This one is probably going to surprise many of you because you probably didn’t know it is something I’ve always wanted to be able to do, but I want to be able to juggle with 3 balls. I saw a book at a local bookstore the other day and told Christina I’d love for Tyler to be able to juggle because everyone needs a seemingly useless talent to just master for the sake of being able to do it. Admittedly I’ve tended to do things in life that I thought would benefit me, but sometimes there are things I just want to be able to do “just because”. Tyler most likely won’t learn to juggle if I can’t juggle, so I’m therefore making it a resolution for the year. I know it is a resolution that I am very likely to fail at because again it is difficult and will take patience, time, and practice.

The next resolution is to focus more time on stretching and becoming more flexible. This is going to sound lame, but at 36 I’m just now starting to realize the aches and pains of aging. I’ve never been flexible, but I’m probably one of the least physically flexible people I know, and I think that is very unhealthy because as I age I’m realizing how important it is.

Drink more water. Pretty self-explanatory but yeah, drink more water.

My dentist has been telling me for years to floss, but I’ve never taken her advice. I would like to floss at least 3-4 times a week in 2014.

Read a book a month, and I’ll even share my list with you.

You might think “getting a new job” would be a 2014 resolution, but I don’t think I’m going to add that one. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and have come to a number of new realizations as of late. This is one of the unique times in my life, and I’m not wasting a day. I want to be the best “Person” I can be in 2014 and beyond! Here’s to a great 2014.

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