Meditations on New Year's Resolutions

In years past my new year's resolutions have been little more than equal parts judgment of self and wishful thinking. And so this year I've decided to take a different approach. All my resolutions revolve around things I enjoy and feel good about. To that end my resolutions are

• stretch every day and
• write more often and thoughtfully.

I enjoy these activities, do them little, and more importantly both these activities leave me predisposed to do the things that normally land on my yearly laundry list of things to do more of e.g. exercise, relax. Neither of these activities increase my stress level, and even thinking about these activities doesn't increase my stress level.

The motivation for this approach to new year's resolutions came in two forms. I had a cold over much of the holidays, and when it came time to make resolutions I was exhausted. Since I have a terrible memory for emotional states, I couldn't imagine that I would feel anything other than exhausted for the following year. Any of the resolutions I would typically make left me with no other thought than how following through on the resolution would separate me from what I envisioned I really wanted, which was lots of sleep and a chance to stare thoughtlessly at the walls. The other motivation came from a discussion with my mom. She was describing problems she faced trying to get work done and ascribed them to getting old. As soon as she told me about them I recognized the cause as stress.

In mulling all this over I came to see that 2007 was damagingly stressful. Being a graduate student is all about staying balanced on a knife-edge between fear of failure and burnout. This is not a healthy state in which to spend an extended time, but last year was particularly bad. The stress and exhaustion that came with writing my qualifying paper, battles with theory, and teaching last fall was changing me. I was less articulate and had trouble formulating or parsing complete sentences. I was supremely distractible when not doing math. I was irritable all the time, especially when someone was asking for my time and taking me away from what I wanted to be doing.  There were few things more frustrating than a phone ringing. (While I try to treat everyone with a certain basic level of respect, tele-marketers who called me last year often got nothing more than terse good-bye's.)  I didn't want to be this person I was changing into, but I wasn't (and am still not) sure how to go about being a grad student without these side effects. And so this year's resolution is essentially to be less stressed, in the hopes that this will return me to the person I remember I once was.