Oooo, a Metamorphosis! Kafka and Ovid Would Be So Proud!

I don't make New Year's resolutions. I know myself too well to believe that the prospect of another year of life will serve as sufficient encouragement to achieve my life goals. If I'm going to change, I know full well it must be motivated by dissatisfaction with my circumstances as manifested in a single, particularly provocative event or series of events. However, in the past few months I have decided that certain promises I have made to myself must finally be fulfilled. To wit: I asked for and received an accordion for Christmas and have so far been quite diligent about practicing daily. I started an intense cardio program five times a week that I plan to continue the rest of the semester. I am also shining a painful but life-giving light on the cruel, selfish places in my soul and excising them, slowly but surely. How much pride and satisfaction it has given me to improve myself mind, body, and soul in significant, quantifiable ways!

Coincidentally, the New Year just rolled around, so I suppose those among you who wish to do so may consider these self-improvement initiatives New Year's resolutions. I see them more as long-overdue payment on post-dated checks transferring funds from a heretofore insufficient fund of inspiration and discipline into a once-dwindling reserve of recent personal change for the better. Six of one, half-dozen of the other.