Basically, I’ve come to the conclusion that I have mixed luck with achieving my goals. There are things I am good at, and things I am not. I am good at working towards things when other people are involved: I am doing well at going back to school, for example, because there are other people there along for the ride and I get docked points if I slack off, so there is a penalty factor there. (Also it’s really $%^&* expensive and no way am I spending $3500 a quarter to fail classes.) I am good at going to the gym for my regular Saturday morning appointment to get my ass kicked, because I don’t want to bail on Laura and I know she does a better job at making me exercise than I do on my own (the muscle ache for days later proves that). These are not particularly fun things for me, but I still manage to show up because there’s some sort of accountability.

However, when no one is looking, I am crap at things that are not actually fun for me: I like going outside and walking and maybe even running some, but I like to do it on my own terms (i.e., when I feel like it) rather than on a set schedule. If no one is there kicking my ass, let’s be realistic, there are a hundred unread books on my bookshelf and if I stay home and read on Tuesday night, one of my few precious school-free days, my feet won’t hurt all day tomorrow from running on asphalt.

I’ve got some accountability set up for myself on certain things, mostly in the form of 43things. 43things is great because it ties in to my great, eternal love of making lists, but it’s not written on a piece of paper to be lost. Also, I like posting my little entries about how I am ticking things off my list; I won’t lie, it’s a bit self-indulgent, maybe, but it’s also a nice record of progress. (See my 23 (!) entries on my admittedly somewhat-amorphous goal to minimize existing clutter and excess possessions. Nothing beats down a “god, I’m never getting anywhere” funk like looking over a list of, yes, I do believe that is a record of me making actual progress, woo!) Similarly, I have a journal that I started keeping years ago about all my financial stuff; that was practically magical when it came to getting all my shit in order and my credit card debt paid off.

Still, 43things or even my very most entertaining Edward Gorey-themed journal cannot push me out of bed an hour earlier to run 5 miles before work. This simple fact has not stopped me from making resolutions along those sorts of lines in the past. These are things I do not actually want to do, but think I should do, or things I feel obligated to do for reasons not at all to do with my personal commitment to them. Here’s an example: I should probably take a calcium supplement, because I hate milk and won’t drink it, so my bones will probably crumble into dust next Wednesday shortly after lunchtime. Problem is, pills are also gross, I hate them because they dissolve and taste disgusting, and as an added bonus, they are easily forgotten about. So I could make a resolution that this, 2010, this will finally be the year that I am above reproach on the osteoporosis front. But let’s be realistic. Pills are still gross (and yes, I tried Viactiv; those just sat and gathered fake-chocolaty dust), and I’m still going to forget them, and I still won’t drink milk because ew, so resolving to do that is just setting myself up to feel really guilty in about six weeks when the bottle of calcium supplements is still rattling along, totally full minus like 3 pills, camped out next to the coffeemaker where I thought for sure this time, I won’t forget it if I put it here.

Therefore, I am opting out. There’s loads of things I could work on, but in the end, seriously, I’m just not going to drink milk or run before work. I know I should get more calcium. I know it speeds up your metabolism more if you exercise in the morning rather than at night. Not knowing these things is not the problem. The problem is I’m just not going to do them, at all, ever, even a little bit, because I do not want to. So I’m not going to make any well-meaning but misguided resolutions in a vain effort to improve myself in some idealistic fashion, because it’s not going to do anything other than make me cranky and bitter. If I want to run, I’ll go run. If I want to go to school, I’ll go to school. If I want something badly enough, I’ll just do it. But I’m not going to set myself up with reasons to bitch myself out for not being good enough anymore.

So. My New Year’s resolution is to stop resolving to do things I know I’m not going to do. Take that, WASP guilt complex!

after registering, i walked home, which was not a bad walk at all (about three miles), except for the part where i was wearing cute but very thin-soled ballet flats (which are perfectly comfy so long as your chief activity is wandering around a carpeted office, and not, say, broken sidewalk, for walking over which one might want a shoe with more arch support than a thin piece of suede). also, next time, maybe not so much with the scenic foot tour of cabrini-green.

So I did some arithmetic over coffee this morning, before getting ready for work, and it looks like if everything holds steady for the next little while, at worst I will be out of credit-card debt by next march, and with a little more effort, it’s even possible I might actually be totally out of debt by the end of the year!

I think I’m going to make that my goal. I’ll keep on brownbagging lunch and avoiding using my car ($4/gal in the city for the premium gas my car drinks!) and doing errands on foot and .. well, I’m not going to give up my magic laundry fairies (because they really do improve the quality of my life, and I think that’s worth safeguarding), but I did cut back from the magic pick-up and bring-back fairies (who turned out to be not so very talented at the bringing back thing, though in fairness they were good at the picking up) to the drop-off and take-away fairies, which saves twenty bucks or so a month. Maybe I can give up Netflix (though I hate to, but that would be $25/mo!). Anyways, I’m going to make it my goal to continue to be a complete cheapskate for the rest of the year and try really, really hard to get it all paid off by then, because if I do, I can increase my 401(k) contributions at open enrollment in December, to use up the extra money I’ll have once my credit cards are paid off. And really, that would make me feel really really badass. :) From exhaustingly endebted to responsibly saving, in 6 months or less! (Well, actually it’s been about 6 years at this point, but I’m pointedly ignoring the past.)

I’ll have to do some more math tonight and figure out exactly what I’ll have to cut out of my budget to make room for this kind of money. But I’m feeling really cheerful and energized. Who would think that doing compound interest calculations over your first cup of coffee on a Tuesday would turn out to be a good thing?

Giving things up may be good for the soul, but I’m still sad to send my Santa Bike (so called because it’s green with red reflective tape on the tubes) off to its new owner.

Nonetheless: it’s done, its new owner was happy to get it, and I know it’ll be better off with someone who can use it. Besides, I already have one bike and I don’t need two.

Farewell, Santa Bike. Don’t get stolen.

Today is 22 days since I last had a cigarette.

Of course, I haven’t actually been to a pub since then, so. Y’know.

So here’s what I think the whole thing has gone thus far:
Days 0, 1 – No real difference
Days 3-7 – An unending chant in the background of my mind about “I want a cigarette,” of varying intensities from bearable to “seriously, get out of arm’s reach because I am going to choke someone and you look really handy right now.”
Days 8-15 – The chant is still there and still irritating, but it’s become somewhat boring and now I’m determined to beat the stupid chant because, dammit, I’m more stubborn than (uh, myself) cigarettes.
Days 16-19 – The chant fades so now you mostly only seriously want cigarettes when you have habit triggers—drinking, meals, your morning routine, etc. First reaction to someone irritating you is no longer “I want a cigarette like WHOA,” but it still kicks in if they continue to stress you out.
Days 20-22 – “That dude in the elevator really stinks like smoke.”

So. Now that I’m thinking about it, yeah, I want a cigarette. But! I wasn’t, until I sat down to write this. I guess that’s good. Mostly I think I’m just pleased about the approximately $80-90 I have not spent on cigarettes in the past three weeks (at $8/pop here—yay sin taxes!).

I have a ridiculously complicated Excel spreadsheet that I use to play out payment plan scenarios and keep track of progress with this. It took me an entire Sunday, several months ago, to create it and come up with a game plan for repaying the debt—but it was totally worth it as now I pretty much just have a checklist to go down, which is nice.

I’d say I have paid off about 26-28% of the total outstanding debt since August. This is pretty notable progress especially since for the past few years until this point, I had thought I was “working on it” but I never seemed to get anywhere, at all. So now I can see the numbers actually going down, to which all I have to say is: Yay!