Twenty Twelve Resolutions :)

image by streetart

New Year's Resolutions may be quite common to  many people, but guess what - I'm turning 20 this year but I've never made any resolutions before in my lifetime. So to usher in the third decade of my earthly life I've decided to list'em down for once.

#1: Improve my relationship with my heavenly Father (God) and my earthly father (my dad).

image by Rebecca Weaver

Both will be by conscious effort on my part.

In the area of my relationship with God, I have to be honest and admit that I take Christianity a lot like culture. Religious may be a fine way to describe my lifestyle - active in church, we have ample supply of Bibles and Christian lit at home, and both of my parents are church elders. However, that says nothing about my own beliefs because I have yet to practice knowing God personally - I'm rather lazy to seek, and 'religion' is something I felt that I grew up with - and got bored of after that because I don't know the significance of why I believe what I do. So this year, I want to go on a seeker's journey to find out what makes up my beliefs and why I believe them - and do so actively, not passively.

As for my dad, I noticed that I'm a lot of the proverbial chip off the old block - my temperament is quite similar to his in many ways, but before this I didn't attempt to understand him (which could have saved me and him a lot of squabbles). I don't want to declare family stuff too openly, but in short my ego gets the upper hand rather often when I relate with my dad. So this year I want to actually get to know him and glean from his wisdom (he's street-smart and wise in my eyes but I didn't admit this in front of him) 

#2: Serve others before myself.

image by Artotem

Primarily, this will be through working and volunteering- a job teaches me to be in service for the society I live in, whereas volunteering in my family, church etc helps lighten someone else's burdens.

Secondarily, I can't click with everyone - and this is something that I fret about quite often! It manifests itself everywhere - school, church, while working, there's so many people I don't take the time to know because they are different (and most of the time because I envy them - causing a somewhat bitter adolescence!) When I try to to get to know someone I hear myself saying stuff like ''She's too pretty/He's too funny/she's so smart' etc, and you are not worthy of their friendship'! However, I find that most of the time by doing that I become cold and unapproachable. So this year I want to put aside my personal faulty beliefs, which are self-protective in nature and just go and get to know people. Your needs before mine. And if there's one slice of pizza on the table, you have it (no matter how much I love food!)

#3: Practice thorough thinking.

image by Hartwig HKD

Hmm, ain't I contemplative enough? Answer: Yeah, but most of that 'thinking' consists of repeating (mostly negative) thoughts in the head over and over, and jumping to conclusions too fast. In many ideas,there are shades of grey, pros and cons, thoughts that need to be carefully considered from both sides (this is the rational thinking skill that I hope to learn while studying law) but too often my emotions decide on one side and preaches hellfire to the other side - not an informed decision but one based on emotional cynicism, preconceived notions and bias. For example, I cannot say that a new government project or a new rule in school or a book that has negative reviews is automatically bad before doing my research on its sources and implications. The temptation is to be lazy to think and decide emotionally earlier, and this year I want to try and avoid falling into that trap of immature thinking.

What are your resolutions? :)