Perhaps it’s age, or perhaps it’s parenthood and living vicariously through others, but each year seems to fly by quicker then the last.
The year 2012 for me personally just seemed to move at warp speed. I left the only place of work I had ever known, started two new businesses, watched my children grow up so quickly, and it all seemed to happen in a flash. It’s hard to fathom that we’ve stepped over the threshold of a new calendar year.
With the approach of a New Year, many folks speak of and plan for new beginnings. Everywhere you look you can make calculated guesses on what individuals might be looking to change or give up.
In the days leading up to January 1, the number of smokers huddled outside bars and public places seemed to be larger. Pizza places, ice cream shops and other food establishments that serve many of our vices all seemed to be having banner times.
We always hear the old adage that we need to ease into new directions and changes. Well, by the looks of things, it’s the last thing that happens the weeks before Christmas and New Year’s as it appears that everyone is overdosing on whatever vice it might be they were planning to rid themselves of in 2013.
I’ve noticed it at Hampton Seafood Company in East Hampton too. While portioning up soups at work over the last couple days of 2012, I noticed that the cream-based soups were all empty pots while the three-bean chili, butternut squash and Yucatan lime looked to be untouched.
I remember how my friends and I—regulars at the watering holes back in our college days—hated alumni weekend, graduation eve and homecoming, when our bars were packed with fellow classmates who went out drinking perhaps three nights their entire college careers. Damn them for taking our bar stools.
Now it’s the gym. But it’s the same thing really. I am quite sure that folks among us who religiously attend the gym are cringing at the record numbers who pour into the facilities at the beginning of each new year.
Personally I am not approaching 2013 as a year of major change and adjustments. Rather, I hope it’s a year that I look back at 2012 and work hard to determine what in my life had me firmly on the road to healthy, tackling my new business ventures with vengeance, and being the best father and husband I could be.
I move ahead in 2013, encouraged about my success. I had way too many successful days, weeks and months in 2012 to not be encouraged by my prospects this year.
I am going to take the time today to write down all the great things and goals I reached in 2012 so that I can reference this list as I set goals and achieve new ones in 2013. Instead of a New Year’s resolution, I think I need to move forward with a New Year’s challenge.
Good deeds I performed in 2012 need to happen more regularly. As far as fitness and diet, I was as focused and determined as anyone—it was just for months instead of for the entire year, and years to come. Like on the golf course when we hit that picture-perfect drive, we need to keep telling ourselves if we were able to do something once, we have the ability to find it in ourselves to do it over and over again.
I don’t expect the road in 2013 to be any less bumpy or less difficult than 2012. I just hope to be able to navigate the bumps, hairpin turns and pit stops that are inevitable in all our lives.
Improving on stress management will help, continued success and business growth is sure to help, and a concerted effort to spend more quality time with the four people who mean the world to me—my lovely wife, Clare, and my great children Emma, Harry and Juliet—should help even more.
Last but not least, I’m promising myself to achieve or set a goal to move toward each and every article I write this year. Everything I want to achieve in 2013 can’t happen in the span of two weeks but perhaps setting mini hills to climb among the mountain of goals I want to achieve will make the journey easier.
So here goes. Give up soda for the next two weeks and lose 5 pounds. I can do this, I will do this.
Happy New Year and live 2013 summer inspired!
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