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The Latest in Resolutions
Jan. 3rd, 2018 08:12 pm2017
Last year I had four resolutions:
1) Spanish - I resolved to finish reading my online Spanish text before it expired and I did. I also hoped to do additional activities but was not willing to commit to specific ones at that time. Score: I finished the DuoLingo Spanish lessons and did half the Spanish lessons at Language Transfer.
2) Blood donations - I resolved to make regular donations, and I actually did this all year long. I've even put it in my calendar as a recurring event, figuring I can adjust them if necessary.
3) Activism - I resolved to sign petitions and try to do other things. I did sign petitions. I also participated in the March for Science and called my representatives a few times. So I'm going to call this a success as well. But it has not worked to make me a better activist.
4) International media - I experienced loads of books and movies from other countries.
2018
I plan to keep donating blood regularly, signing petitions, and consuming international media, but don't feel the need to make resolutions on these.
1) Exercise - I want to exercise at least 30 minutes per day (besides walking) at least five days a week (unless I'm sick).
2) And then I have several other ideas that might be good, but I'm not willing to make a resolution about any them. So let's just say that I resolve to do one additional cool thing. And here are some possibilities I already have thought of:
a) Write a real program in Python (beyond assignments)
b) Go through the rest of my beginner and intermediate Spanish resources:
* Puntos de Partido and an accompanying workbook - sort of like a sister to my other Spanish
* A couple of Practice Makes Perfect workbooks
* finish the Language Transfer course
* Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish
* I think I have a grammar guide
* I think I have some story books
c) Declutter a lot. My sister is doing a project to declutter 2018 things in 2018. That's a lot of things. She's putting a chart on her refrigerator and adding a gold star for each item she gets rid of. Did I mention that's a lot of things? Admittedly, you can use your own judgment in deciding whether a stack of magazines counts as one stack or multiple magazines. (Admittedly, if you count each page, 2018 things isn't quite so many.)
d) Figure out a way to do something fight discrimination somehow. I am convinced that even if all racism disappeared, certain people would still be at a disadvantage due to things that have happened in the past such as redlining, crappy racist-caused job history and trauma, networking mainly only with other people who have been disadvantaged in the past, etc. So just not being discriminatory isn't enough.
I don't know how to do this. But I have been learning that there are plenty of ways that I inadvertently support discrimination. You know, I don't do it myself; I have people for that. My worst one is probably looking for low prices, which can support discriminatory labor practices.
I have read to look for places where you have power such as in hiring decisions and making sure to use your power for good, but I don't think I have much of this kind of power which makes sense because I deliberately don't seek out that kind of power.
However, it is becoming very clear that I have more privilege than most people. Besides the obvious advantages of being born healthy to loving parents in the US, my physical and mental health problems are nothing at all compared to what I have been hearing about and reading about for so many people. Are there ways I can use my privilege to help other people? Apparently I refuse to use my brain to invent awesome stuff like I should have all these years.
Here's another idea: I have read that it's hard to get lifeguards and swim instructors in my part of town. So kids in my neighborhood have fewer lessons and less swim time available to them, and they are less likely to learn to swim and later more likely to drown. I could try for one of these jobs. (This is exactly the kind of job I can get--where they need to hire a bunch of people at once.) Though it might be the case that this was a surprising problem for only one summer after which they raised the salaries significantly and started doing way better and better-timed marketing in the high schools to find interested people in time to get them trained.
I can't forget that Monopoly study where one player started with twice as much money as the other person, got twice as much money when they passed "GO," and got to use two dice to move around the board twice as quickly, and after only 15 minutes were already attributing their success to their own brains and hard work. When I first saw it, I thought that if I were the advantaged one, I would immediately give half my excess to the other person every time. But in real life, there's more than one other person to share with so I can't use the same strategy.
And in real life I am way too selfish to want to give up the lifestyle to which I have become accustomed just to make lots of people's lives infinitely better. (So much easier and more fun to give away half my Monopoly money!) I could at least copy those rich people discussed at the end of the Ted Talk above who pledge to give away half their wealth (before or after their death): I could make a charity the beneficiary of my IRA (though it's less than half my wealth). It does remind me of Thomas Jefferson, though, freeing his slaves in his will (at no sacrifice to himself at all), but then he had so many debts that his slaves had to sold to cover those debts and didn't even get to go free then.
Anyway, I'm going to try to keep my eye open for ways to share my privilege or otherwise use my power for good to help those who are discriminated against or otherwise underprivileged or just in need of help, ideally in ways that are fun for me.
Exercise update
It's been a while since I wrote, so this will be long.
12/21, Thursday - I felt energetic again, so I planned to do my pilates video but could not due to technical difficulties. So I jogged instead. I managed the whole three miles again and did it in my lower time again: 41 minutes. Yay!
12/22 - I went to the Silver Sneakers class. I was running late, so I jogged part of the way there. I still arrived late (right! I don't jog twice as fast as I walk anymore). I felt weaker and less energetic than usual and blamed my very long break. Then I remember that I had arrived sweaty and somewhat used up, plus it was warm and humid in the room. By the second half of the class I was back to normal. Woo!
12/23 - can't remember, didn't write it. Probably nothing?
12/24 - was busy, nothing
12/25 - noticed sore throat the evening before, was feverish, also visited friends for Christmas--no exercise
12/26 - felt much better, did pilates video. Felt only a little sub-par during most of it, except for the push-ups at the end where I just gave into gravity.
12/27 - triceps ache for some reason. No exercise except a short jog to the mailbox (less that 1 mile round trip).
12/28 - nothing
12/29 - nothing--slept over 12 hours
12/30 through 1/2 - Nothing. It sure looks like exercising too soon after getting sick the second time did me in. I had no energy until New Year's Eve and am still taking it easy.
Last year I had four resolutions:
1) Spanish - I resolved to finish reading my online Spanish text before it expired and I did. I also hoped to do additional activities but was not willing to commit to specific ones at that time. Score: I finished the DuoLingo Spanish lessons and did half the Spanish lessons at Language Transfer.
2) Blood donations - I resolved to make regular donations, and I actually did this all year long. I've even put it in my calendar as a recurring event, figuring I can adjust them if necessary.
3) Activism - I resolved to sign petitions and try to do other things. I did sign petitions. I also participated in the March for Science and called my representatives a few times. So I'm going to call this a success as well. But it has not worked to make me a better activist.
4) International media - I experienced loads of books and movies from other countries.
2018
I plan to keep donating blood regularly, signing petitions, and consuming international media, but don't feel the need to make resolutions on these.
1) Exercise - I want to exercise at least 30 minutes per day (besides walking) at least five days a week (unless I'm sick).
2) And then I have several other ideas that might be good, but I'm not willing to make a resolution about any them. So let's just say that I resolve to do one additional cool thing. And here are some possibilities I already have thought of:
a) Write a real program in Python (beyond assignments)
b) Go through the rest of my beginner and intermediate Spanish resources:
* Puntos de Partido and an accompanying workbook - sort of like a sister to my other Spanish
* A couple of Practice Makes Perfect workbooks
* finish the Language Transfer course
* Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish
* I think I have a grammar guide
* I think I have some story books
c) Declutter a lot. My sister is doing a project to declutter 2018 things in 2018. That's a lot of things. She's putting a chart on her refrigerator and adding a gold star for each item she gets rid of. Did I mention that's a lot of things? Admittedly, you can use your own judgment in deciding whether a stack of magazines counts as one stack or multiple magazines. (Admittedly, if you count each page, 2018 things isn't quite so many.)
d) Figure out a way to do something fight discrimination somehow. I am convinced that even if all racism disappeared, certain people would still be at a disadvantage due to things that have happened in the past such as redlining, crappy racist-caused job history and trauma, networking mainly only with other people who have been disadvantaged in the past, etc. So just not being discriminatory isn't enough.
I don't know how to do this. But I have been learning that there are plenty of ways that I inadvertently support discrimination. You know, I don't do it myself; I have people for that. My worst one is probably looking for low prices, which can support discriminatory labor practices.
I have read to look for places where you have power such as in hiring decisions and making sure to use your power for good, but I don't think I have much of this kind of power which makes sense because I deliberately don't seek out that kind of power.
However, it is becoming very clear that I have more privilege than most people. Besides the obvious advantages of being born healthy to loving parents in the US, my physical and mental health problems are nothing at all compared to what I have been hearing about and reading about for so many people. Are there ways I can use my privilege to help other people? Apparently I refuse to use my brain to invent awesome stuff like I should have all these years.
Here's another idea: I have read that it's hard to get lifeguards and swim instructors in my part of town. So kids in my neighborhood have fewer lessons and less swim time available to them, and they are less likely to learn to swim and later more likely to drown. I could try for one of these jobs. (This is exactly the kind of job I can get--where they need to hire a bunch of people at once.) Though it might be the case that this was a surprising problem for only one summer after which they raised the salaries significantly and started doing way better and better-timed marketing in the high schools to find interested people in time to get them trained.
I can't forget that Monopoly study where one player started with twice as much money as the other person, got twice as much money when they passed "GO," and got to use two dice to move around the board twice as quickly, and after only 15 minutes were already attributing their success to their own brains and hard work. When I first saw it, I thought that if I were the advantaged one, I would immediately give half my excess to the other person every time. But in real life, there's more than one other person to share with so I can't use the same strategy.
And in real life I am way too selfish to want to give up the lifestyle to which I have become accustomed just to make lots of people's lives infinitely better. (So much easier and more fun to give away half my Monopoly money!) I could at least copy those rich people discussed at the end of the Ted Talk above who pledge to give away half their wealth (before or after their death): I could make a charity the beneficiary of my IRA (though it's less than half my wealth). It does remind me of Thomas Jefferson, though, freeing his slaves in his will (at no sacrifice to himself at all), but then he had so many debts that his slaves had to sold to cover those debts and didn't even get to go free then.
Anyway, I'm going to try to keep my eye open for ways to share my privilege or otherwise use my power for good to help those who are discriminated against or otherwise underprivileged or just in need of help, ideally in ways that are fun for me.
Exercise update
It's been a while since I wrote, so this will be long.
12/21, Thursday - I felt energetic again, so I planned to do my pilates video but could not due to technical difficulties. So I jogged instead. I managed the whole three miles again and did it in my lower time again: 41 minutes. Yay!
12/22 - I went to the Silver Sneakers class. I was running late, so I jogged part of the way there. I still arrived late (right! I don't jog twice as fast as I walk anymore). I felt weaker and less energetic than usual and blamed my very long break. Then I remember that I had arrived sweaty and somewhat used up, plus it was warm and humid in the room. By the second half of the class I was back to normal. Woo!
12/23 - can't remember, didn't write it. Probably nothing?
12/24 - was busy, nothing
12/25 - noticed sore throat the evening before, was feverish, also visited friends for Christmas--no exercise
12/26 - felt much better, did pilates video. Felt only a little sub-par during most of it, except for the push-ups at the end where I just gave into gravity.
12/27 - triceps ache for some reason. No exercise except a short jog to the mailbox (less that 1 mile round trip).
12/28 - nothing
12/29 - nothing--slept over 12 hours
12/30 through 1/2 - Nothing. It sure looks like exercising too soon after getting sick the second time did me in. I had no energy until New Year's Eve and am still taking it easy.