Summer Ambitions ’06

Every summer, I have certain plans and goals that I establish for myself. They’re like New Year’s resolutions, but I find the beginning of the summer a better time to institute lifestyle changes than the middle of the winter. This summer, I’d like to share them with you. By making these public, I’m attempting to ensure a certain level of accountability, maybe even improve my chances of achieving my ambitions. Also, I normally don’t write them down, so by doing that, I can focus more effectively and, with some luck, follow through with more of them. According to my recollections, I generally get done less than half of what I want each summer; let’s see if I can improve that ratio.

1) Sabbath – The book that I mentioned last post that I’m reading stresses the importance of having a day dedicated to rest, recreation, and reflection. The more I think about it, the more I like the concept, so I’m going to give it a shot. At least for the summer, Sunday will be a day of no work and no exercise. Instead, I will collect my thoughts and, if some of them are weighing particularly heavy on my mind, write a blog post about them. Hopefully, this ritual (beginning with this post) will have a positive effect on my mental health. As for the physical…

2) Exercise – I’ve always had a problem with this one. During the summer, I’ve typically been very lazy, especially after I started working my senior year. What’s been my normal routine when I get home from work? Plop down on the couch, watch some TV, eat dinner, play video games, go to sleep. At Lehigh, I walk virtually everywhere, so I have a minimal level of fitness there; at home, all that evaporates. This year, I plan on changing that. Every day except Sunday, I’m going to exercise for at least half-an-hour. I’ll be switching off between walking and doing some sort of strength training, along with ultimate frisbee whenever possible.

3) Soul-searching – Here, I have several separate but related goals. To start, I have some thinking about the future to do, figuring out what I’m doing with my life and where I’m going with it. I’m not overly concerned that I’m on the wrong path, but it’s always a good idea to periodically reexamine these things. Also, there are aspects of my personality that I’m going to work on: I want to learn to stress out less, be less of a control freak, and continue to work on my moral character (for example, I judge others too quickly based upon superficial observations).

4) Reading – Finally, like every summer, there are some books I intend to read. Most of them are religious in nature: The Left Hand of God (in progress), Dante’s Divine Comedy (I’m up to Paradiso), The Bible (from cover to cover for the first time), and various other books on the reading list that I recently made. In the past, work has been an excellent place to get some reading done, so we’ll see if this summer is any different.

You guys doing anything similar? If so, I’d be interested to hear about it.