Showing posts with label New Year's Resolutions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Year's Resolutions. Show all posts
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Nix Negativity for New Year's
This time of year is all about looking back at the last 12 months, trying to compile things into nice, neat lists to help us summarize the year that was.
And believe me there is nothing geeks like me like doing more than dissecting and examining their obsessions in minute detail, rating them and then having heated arguments about those ratings with their geeky friends
But I’m not going to do that.
Why?
Because there are plenty of other sites out there on the Internet where you can read that kind of stuff.
Plus, I also find it kind of boring.
Now I like a good esoteric debate about the merits – or lack there of – of fictional worlds, characters, starship design, weapons and tactics as much as the next geek. I’ve even been known to engage in an hours-long discussion of why the TARDIS is a cooler time machine than the DeLorean from “Back to the Future.” (Hey, it’s bigger on the inside than the outside, can travel in both outer space as well as time, and has its own swimming pool!) But I’ve grown kind of tired of the negativity expressed on those Internet forums.
Look, I get it that we geeks are a passionate group, but the amount of vitriol people spew out about things they dislike gets me upset and depressed. Sometimes it seems like these rants are personal attacks on people who dare to have a contrary opinion. Even more upsetting than this growing lack of respect for those with differing points of view is that all some people want to do is tear things down.
Whatever happened to exploring how things could have been made better?
As a writer, I want people to critique my work. But I want them to tell me more than just what I did wrong. Tell me why you think it didn’t work and exactly how you think it could have been made better.
It’s called positive or constructive criticism and shows a person put a lot more thought into their review. It’s easy to point out a work’s flaws, especially when they are glaringly obvious (cough, cough, Jar Jar Binks cough, cough). But it takes more time and effort to examine a work, look at its themes and ideas and figure out ways that they could have been expressed better.
So I’m going to ask everyone who is reading this post to make a New Year’s Resolution to be a lot less negative next year. Try not to solely focus on what made something so bad. Try and figure out what could have been done to make it better, and let others know in a positive, constructive way.
And maybe, just maybe, if we’re lucky, that positive attitude will begin to rub off on others, leading to a brighter, more optimistic future for us all.
Happy New Year!
Sunday, December 29, 2013
New Year’s Regenerations
This year hasn’t been an especially good one for me, and, as you’ve probably noticed, this blog went practically untouched because of it.
Almost right from the start, things became very stressful, as we adopted our newest four-legged family member on Jan. 5, and I struggled to….
Hey! What give me that back!
 |
| Merlin |
Ifz hez thinkz it was stressfulz, jus imagine howz it waz
for mez! I’z had to brakez in TWO newz peopuls!
— Merlin
— Merlin
Get your paws off my keyboard!
And get down from my chair!
Bad Dog!
Now where was I?
Oh yes.
Talking about my dog.
Well Merlin, a half black Lab, half pointer, is the youngest dog I’ve ever had. He wasn’t quite two when my wife and I rescued him, and although he is one of the sweetest, most good-natured dogs around, he turned our house and our lives upside-down for the first few months we had him. He came to us with not much in the way of house manners, wasn’t potty trained, barely knew any commands and had a penchant for escaping from our yard or house, very quickly earning himself the first of his many nicknames — Houdini.
Then just when he was beginning to get the hang of being a well-behaved, family dog, I got sick.
Very sick.
In late April I cleverly managed to get pneumonia.
But not just any pneumonia.
Because I don’t do things half-way, I managed to get double pneumonia!
I wrote about that experience after I got out of the hospital and it was the last time I had the strength or motivation to do any real writing this year.
It took me until August to fully recover and get my strength back. Prior to that it was all I could do to get up and go to work each day without getting totally exhausted and needing to take a nap. Some days I even got so tired from taking a nap, that I needed to take a nap to recover from getting up from a nap!
Needless to say, I was excited to finally feel like myself again, and looked forward to spending those hot, dog-days of summer floating around my pool in my “floaty” chair, listening to my iPod and writing.
But this year my hopes were dashed, because the summer in the Northeast was quite cool and rainy. As a result, I didn’t get much pool or writing time in.
Instead, I turned to one of my other favorite leisure-time activities – woodworking and DIY-ing.
I had a whole list of projects I wanted to get to this year and was all set to begin them in the spring when I got sick. Now with my “woodworking season” more than halfway over, I spent all my free time over the next three months in my garage-workshop banging out those projects.
The good news is that I managed to finish all but one of those projects before the cold weather arrived in November, forcing me to close down my shop for another season.
(Note to family: If I had that 20’ x 20’ foot HEATED workshop
I’ve been asking for for years, I could have finished everything!)
I’ve been asking for for years, I could have finished everything!)
About this same time, one of my beloved aunts died and the sadness that surrounded that occasion further sapped my will to move from the couch.
Of course, because I’m Jewish, and we Jews need to feel guilty about something or our lives won’t feel complete, I began to fret about this lack of motivation and the fact I kept putting things off. Even things I liked doing, like writing.
However, I didn’t have the motivation to do anything about it, until Christmas day, when, ironically enough, I was lying on the couch watching the “Doctor Who” Christmas special: “Time of the Doctor.”
(Admit it you were wondering
when I was going to get around
to relating this to something geeky, weren’t you?)
to relating this to something geeky, weren’t you?)
I found the show especially appropriate to my mindset, as this year’s episode featured the title character’s regeneration.
Now, for those few of you unfamiliar with this once cult-classic, and now uber-popular BBC sci-fi TV show, “Doctor Who” is about a time traveling alien who can change not only his entire appearance but personality when his body is injured or dying. He was only supposed to be able to do this 12 times, and Christmas day’s episode saw the 11th actor to play The Doctor handing off the role to someone new.
This “regeneration” and change of roles happening so close to the end of the year got me thinking about New Year’s resolutions.
It occurred to me that New Year’s resolutions can be more
than just those annual empty promises we make to ourselves. It our chance to be
like “Doctor Who” and regenerate, completely changing ourselves.
I’m not talking about running out and getting massive
amounts of plastic surgery to totally change our face and bodies.
(But would getting a little more hair on the top of my head be too much to ask?).
While there certainly are a lot of things I’d like to change about myself, the one I thing I’ll concentrate on this year is my tendency to procrastinate.
I let stress and my long illness during the first part of this year eat away at my motivation to do anything more than what was absolutely necessary during the second half the year. I kept telling myself I didn’t have the energy to do something, so I’d put it off. Even things I like doing like writing got put off.
But no more.
Starting Jan. 1, 2014, I’m going “regenerate” and become less of a procrastinator and stop putting things off, including my writing.
Now I know that one of the surefire ways to ensure a New Year’s resolution fails is to set unreasonable goals. So I’m not going to promise you I’m finally going to finish my novel that’s beginning to make George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series look like a short story, nor am I going to promise that I will post something new to this blog every week. What I AM going to do is make sure I put up a new post at least once a month, finish a short story I’ve been working on for a friend and maybe get even get a few more chapters written for my novel.
Will I succeed?
I don’t honestly know. Only time (and Time Lords) know. The rest of you will just have to stay tuned…
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