It's September!

The majority of the American population falls into a cultural fad of "New Year's Resolutions." We all make them, we all break them. It gets to be this recurring cycle of performing bad habits or not performing good habits all year long until January 1st, 12:01AM. And we make a list of changes we promise we're going to keep this time. Common items include: lose weight, read a book a week, lose more weight, read a bible verse daily, eat healthy (to lose weight), and exercise for 30 minutes a day...to lose weight. And then within a few days, we don't follow through with our promises, and wait an entire year again, to make the same resolutions we're just going make, break, and then wait again for. A catch-22.

I, too, fall into this tradition. For example, last year my resolutions were:

1. Write down my dreams daily.

2. Learn a new word each day.

3. Some other third thing.

I kept the first resolution going for about 2 weeks. The second, about 2 days. And the third...I don't even remember what it was; henceforth, the chances of any effort being put forth to act on the resolution are slim to none. 

It just occurred to me, why do we wait an entire year to change our bad habits or create good ones? Why not start today? Or every week pick a new thing to change. Or every month? <-- See where I'm going with this? I've decided that at the start of each month, I'm going to make a Mini-Bucket Bucket List. (Yes, I did this for summer vacation, but you have to admit, it worked out swimmingly.) The list will consist of things to do and habits to change. At the end of the month, for every item not completed on the list, I will give myself a punishment. (Not eating 105 tomatoes.) Reasonable punishments include: I can't go on Facebook for the entire next month, or I can't drink any soda the next month, et cetera, et cetera. For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you know of the 30-Day Challenges I used to do. One month consisted of no Facebook, another, no junk food. The punishments will be like this, except these will be, um, punishments - not voluntary acts of "bettering my self-motivation, self-control, and self-whatever-else-is-uplifting." In closing, 

My Mini-Bucket-Bucket-List for the Month of September: 

1. Read at least one chapter of a NEW book of my liking every night, no matter how tired I am.

2. Go to the library and get as many seasons of Sex and the City as possible and actually make time to watch them. 

3. Do a minimum of 25 crunches/sit-ups a day.

4. Buy 2 books to start my Life's Library.

5. Blog at least twice a week. 

6. Paint or "touch-up" my nails every Friday night. 

7. Make an A on at least 2 out of 5 "First-Exams-of-the-Semester."

8. Make one normal friend. 

9. Not fall asleep in class.

10. Have more than six hours of practice time in the simulation labs for ATC. 

Going to keep this updated as things are accomplished and in-progress. Be thinking of good punishments; the chances of me succeeding at all of this are highly unrealistic.