On January 1st, 2013 I'm going to commit suicide. Not suicide in the literal sense of the word, but internet suicide. After many years of acquiring numerous email accounts, joining forums and websites, and using the same moniker for a grotesquely amount of things upon the internet, I'm going to retire that handle and start fresh with a new one. About the only thing I can't change it with is PSN, which I will continue to use the same name as it was intended. A gamer tag.
You might be asking yourself "Why would you want to go through all that effort and hassel?" The simple answer is its my New Year's resolution, or at least one of them. Resolutions have over time become this thing that people claim they are going to do and don't follow through with, or even make something up that they would have done anyways. How many people do you know that have made the resolution "I'm going to get in shape!" or "I'm going to quit smoking!" or "I'm going to get all As this year in school."? Many resolutions are either ambiguous gesters people make to make themselves feel like the next year is going to be great, or a light hearted way of telling people that they have a problem and want to change it.
Resolutions should be two things in their creation. They should something personal to that individual person, whether in something they want to change about themselves or about the world around them. The other is that it should be something specific and achievable within one year. Stating "I'm going to get in shape." is non-specific and really not personal. Why do you want to get in shape? What is in shape for you? I'm personally round in shape and consider myself fairly healthy at 6'3'' and 240 pounds. I'm not going to run any marathons in that shape, but it's a shape. A better resolution would be "I'm going to lose 30 pounds." or "I'm going to get in good enough shape to run a marathon." Those allow you to have a goal set in mind or a reason why.
I have personally set three resolutions for myself. The first I already stated as a form of internet suicide. I chose this resolution for several reasons. The first being that I am attempting to simplify my life as much as possible, and by resetting my internet identity I hope to achieve at least another step or two closer to that goal. I don't know if I can get my life to the simplicity I want in one year, which is why I didn't set that as my goal. I also did it because I realized that I had been using the same online identity since I first entered the internet world. I have used the same moniker for everything everywhere. A quick search on Google pops me up on GameTabs.net, DeviantArt, Ani.me, LittleBigPlanet, Steam, Twitter, WoWhead, Rockband, Tickld, Playfire, and a ton of other websites (3270 hits to be more precise) The problem with this is that many of these websites I'm no longer apart of, and actually don't want to be affiliated with anymore. Some of these were websites that I joined on a whim of hope or at a point in my life when I was going through a phase. Others were accounts I made because I thought I was going to start something that I never got around too. Instead of finding every website out there that has this moniker in use and deleting the account all together, I find it much easier to just start from scratch. While that persona will forever be on those websites, I hope in the future I will be able to distance myself far enough from any websites I don't want to be affiliated with and they will never come back to haunt me.
The second resolution I have set is a personal improvement one. Exercise. "But, didn't you just say that was an ambiguous resolution?" Yes, it is until I say the way I have worded it. Before I get into the math, let me state the reason. Over the course of the last year, I've begun feeling age creeping up on me. This sucks as I'm only 27, but I've started noticing that I can't lift and move and do many of the things I used to. (namely playing a full round of Dance Dance Revolution without getting winded.) So my goal is to get to an endurance and strength level that allows me to dance all night, run after people without getting winded, and generally go back to the way I was able to have fun when I was in the military. Now the specifics. Math. Yes, math comes into play. Every day, regardless of weather, schedule, sickness, or anything aside from horrible injury that physically prevents me from doing it, I am going to perform 10X Push-ups, 10X Sit-ups, and 1X laps around my block. What is X? X is the number of the month. This means that starting January 1st, I will be doing 10 push-ups, 10 sit-ups, and one lap around the block, but by December, that will have increased to 120 push-ups, 120 sit-ups, and 12 laps (which is going to be equivalent of three miles.) I have never been much for the running aspect, which is why the last part is so critical. Even in the military, a mile and a half in 12 minutes was practically impossible for me. I am really hoping I can remedy this. But you will notice that this is a very specific resolution in it's execution. There isn't anything in it that I can say "Oh, well, I worked out yesterday and have so much to do today..." NO! This is a daily exercise program that is actually pretty easy to maintain. The only limitation is that I have to complete it within each 24 hour period.
The final resolution is what you are reading now. This very blog. While my first two were self improvement resolutions solely, this one is a bit different. I've wanted to start a blog for a long time but never really could find the reason to do so. It wasn't until last month that I finally realized what I should blog about. There are rants that go through my mind in which I actually debate with myself. It's a fantastic trait of a Gemini. I'm sure other people have done it, but I love to sit alone for a while and debate a subject by myself. I take a point, come up with all my pros and cons through my own perspective and how I feel, and then I counter all of them and try to gather the reasoning behind them from another perspective until I've arrived at a three dimensional view of the subject seeing it from multiple angles simultaneously. Then I draw final conclusions based on it. I generally kept those conclusions to myself unless the topic came up in conversation, but lately I've had no real outlet for anything my mind has been processing. So, I decided I should put them into the internet and see where it ends up.
With this blog, I'm making a few promises and I have a few hopes. The first promise is that I won't simply bash on a topic unless I have reason, fact, and a way to improve it. The second is that I will keep it going at least once per week. (I may insert random little mini-rants if a topic comes up I have to get off my chest) Finally, I promise that it will be honest and uncensored. I'm not one for sugar coating anything (except cookies) and I'm not going to sit there and tell people that everything is great and covered in rainbows if it isn't.
As far as hopes, I have two. The first is that eventually this blog becomes popular enough that I can get paid for it. Yeah...everything comes down to money. However, even if I'm not making money on it, doesn't mean I'm going to stop it. It just means I can spend more time writing into it. The second hope is that on each posting, I change at least one person's way of thinking, even if it's in a minor way. I would like to think that anyone that reads my blog would take something within it to heart and change a minor aspect of their life for the better. Finally, I hope that this will allow my to compose my thoughts into an eventual book. I've had an idea for a self-help book for a while, but I've never been able to sit down and finish some thoughts on it without going on massive tangents or being interrupted.
With that said, I must go and prepare for my suicide. When the next blog is posted, I will be a brand new person, no longer bound by the persona I have used online for the last 12 years. This new year, 2013 is bringing with it changes in both myself and the world. I hope you will enjoy the journey as much as I will.
~Waldo
