Social Media Anonymous – The Good, The Bad and the UGLY!

Since my last post I received a few msgs  from people saying that I should have delved deeper in the subject. I do realise that I kept my distance from the core of the topic but I did so on purpose. First and foremost I have to say that the experiment was a success as far as I’m concerned because I did manage to break away from Facebook entirely and I'm filling up my time with activities I actually like doing. Things that when I look up at the clock make me feel fulfilled and positive that I didn’t let time slip away. My posts have been limited and my interactions with my Facebook friends have been limited too. After 16 days I finished the experiment I only had one chat of about an hour with a close friend from Malta sometime this week.  If you had to ask me if I miss it? I actually don’t. If you ask me if I miss the human interaction I don’t either. Now I don’t want to offend any of my friends and I do love to keep in touch but allow me here to really put to words what my introspective journey have lead me to during that week.

It is very hard for me to write about this without somehow delving into my personal life and essentially it’s the reason why I didn’t write in detail about my findings. In fact it has taken me so long to write the final follow up simply because I didn’t know how to tackle the topic without doing so but because I want to move on with my blog I will try and be creative and move past this stumbling block and finish what I started. 

My social life can be as busy or as quite as I want it to be, I’m in the driving seat! Obviously I hear you say...... but it’s not believe me. My life hasn’t been like that for many years and without dwelling much on it I have to admit that there were phases in my life where Facebook WAS all of my social life.  As my life was morphing and changing I made new friends and rekindled old friendships. I have a phone book full of acquaintances and when I want to I’m just a phone call or msg away from the next experience or adventure. I have to admit that London can be either your Oyster or your Snake Pit in that respect and the only difference is whether you take a leap of faith into life or not. I choose the former because as I always said the world will keep going round and it’s purely my choice if I go round with it or let me drag me.

So here is where I answer all the rhetorical questions I have placed on my last blog. Do I use Facebook to vent my frustrations? Yes!!! I was doing that simply because I knew that there would always be someone willing to listen and comment, which is in itself amazing and comforting but all said and done does it really help? No! Most of the times I was chatting about something privately with friends who like me seemed to have the luxury of time to be on FB for long hours at a time and when I think about it, how much more like me were these people? Were we really helping each other or was it a case of the lame leading the blind? I have to admit that in some though hours I did find help from friends across Europe over chat but there is a fine line between tough hours and forgetting to keep your pace up with the world that will not stop for you.

As I have been discovering very recently very few people can hold my attention for a substantial amount of time. I used to blame myself and think that it’s down to my short attention span but in reality it has got nothing to do with it. There are quite a few people in my life who are very capable of holding my attention for hours and some even for days and I’m pretty sure that by now you are wondering what I’m driving to with this ……. Well it’s very easy; if I was sitting in a pub with a friend or an acquaintance and while talking to them I get this urge to have a peek at Facebook it means that my attention is veering from the discussion which in the end means that my time would have been better spent elsewhere. I know this might not be the nicest thing to say and because my phone is an extension of me I don’t want everyone to think that because I’m sending a text it means that I’m not interested in their company but as I have said before this is a personal journey and like every personal journey there may be some unsavoury parts to it. With that in mind I was simply using Facebook as an escape route from otherwise boring situations which is ironic really because when I think about it Facebook is one of the most boring things ever. Yes I just said it! It is boring because it’s simply mind numbing at best and people keep going back to it like drug addicts keep going back to heroin. Here I apologize to those of you who find this offensive and I guess now you know the other reason why I didn’t write about it in depth the first time round. 

Going back to the element of human interaction – I think these social media tools are precious for human interaction especially for someone like me who has been living away from their own country and family for several years. I can only assure that being able to watch my nephew cut his birthday cake and sing happy birthday to him with the rest of the family when I couldn’t physically be there, was priceless. So I am thankful for the luxury these tools offer yet there is such a fine line between living a life aided by them or hampered by them. 

Once again I want to emphasize that this is a personal journey I am sharing here and that these are my personal thoughts and opinions purely driven from my own experiences and by no means am I trying to insult or hurt anyone.

With the hope that by now I don’t have a haters club, I salute you from my Oyster :-)

Love,

Graziella x

Social Media Anonymus - The Follow-up!

Right folks so it's been a week since my last post and please just allow me to say:  MY GOODNESS WHAT A WEEK!
So right after my post last week I sat down and made a timetable, I stuck it on my little notice board all nice and colorful with my little ladybug push pins but I have to say I didn’t follow the plan at all, stay with me folks, don’t give up just yet.  In my post last week I said that I would switch off for just an hour but when I made my timetable I decided that I wanted to take this further and I had pretty much allocated a good two and a half hours per day for my experiment. I planned that while I was commuting from home to work and during my lunch break I wouldn’t look at my phone and switch it off for the agreed hour in the evenings. So this is roughly how my experiment went:

Wednesday morning: I read a book all the way to work my phone was on but it was in my bag and I didn’t look at it until I was at my desk in the office.  Outcome: I managed to read a few pages from a book my friend gave me a good start I must say.
Wednesday lunch time: This is where the withdrawal symptoms began to kick in! My phone died on me and I was transferring data from one to another so I decided to leave it on my desk and go out of the office without. With big hesitation and clutching my bag like my life depended on it I stepped into the world without my phone! I kid you not I felt un-easy getting out of the building without my phone with me right until I reached the shops: there isn’t anything shopping can’t cure! I went back to the office eager to be reunited with my beloved Blackberry but happy to have survived my first hour without it. Outcome: Shopping is awesome!
Wednesday evening: I had planned to watch a movie with a friend but that got cancelled and an event at work shifted my whole week. I was in the office till 21.40 and it felt so pathetic I had to complain on Facebook about it (because there was no one around in the office at that hour) and I definitely didn’t switch my phone off because I was having a rant about it with my boss who is half way across the globe via BBM! Outcome: Do I restore to my phone and Facebook in order to vent my frustrations? Does it really help?


Thursday morning: I was very tired after the stressful evening so I didn’t feel like reading. I listened to music instead which meant that I had to use my phone and out of boredom I did go on Facebook. Outcome: Do I use my phone and Facebook to kill time and boredom? Do I restore to it when my mind is too lazy to engage into anything else?
Thursday lunch: I went out for lunch with a friend and I took my phone with me and it sat in front of me all the time even though I didn’t look at it. Outcome: Not sure what to make of it really….why do I have to keep my phone in front of me? How much could I really miss if I don’t look at it for an hour?
Thursday evening: I went out for unplanned drinks with a friend and I didn’t switch it off but I kept it in my bag for the best part of the evening. Outcome: Well I could focus on the conversation and because I was focused I didn’t find the need to check my Facebook page every five minutes.


Friday morning: Because I can hardly remember what I ate yesterday, for this experiment I decided to keep a journal of my progress so all the way to work I updated the journal and started to jot a few ideas for the blog. Outcome: It feels good when I engage my mind into writing so early in the morning.
Friday lunch: Had lunch with Clark Kent today normally we never use phones when we hang out since we always have too much to catch up on or talk about to mind our phones so it wasn’t an effort to keep the phone in my bag. Clark is waiting to read the outcome of this experiment but we have agreed right away that I was not going to discuss it with him until after the post. Outcome: Our chats always evolve around creativity, art and the likes which are all subjects that captivate me. Does this mean that I’m not fueling my creativity enough and that when I do I don’t need anything else to entertain me?
Friday evening: Went on an unplanned pub crawl right in the city center (whilst wearing a Winnie the Pooh T-shirt…. Ahh the embarrassment) I know that by now I pretty much have lost face with my Maltese girlfriends but trust me girls this is London you can get away with anything. Back to the point, I geo-tagged myself before I went into a pub had a few drinks and way too many sliders (mini burgers). We moved on to the next pub and the one after that. A couple of hours later I look at my phone to find that a friend had asked me if I was going to be in Charlotte street longer I messaged her back but at that point it was pointless. Outcome: I missed not seeing my friend but yet again I was fully engaged in the conversation I was having with the people I was with and I was aware of my surroundings.


Saturday morning and lunch: I booked myself on a couple of jewellery making classes so I had my phone switched off for a good four hours. Didn’t miss it at all, since I was way too focused on stringing beads I had no brain space to think about my phone. Outcome: When I do the things I love I definitely don’t have a need for my phone.
Saturday evening: In one of those crazy last minute “let’s go girl” moments I picked up the phone called my friend ran home and before you know it I was out again dancing the night away in Windsor. Had to use my phone for part of the evening to chat with a friend who is on a different time zone but for the rest I had an amazing time with my phone in my bag! Outcome: I have to say my phone did crimp my style!


Sunday full day: Sunday I went on a road trip to the sea with some friends. The company was good and the day was simply brilliant. I messeged a bit while we were driving down to the beach (it did take us 5 hours to get there)  but I didn’t use my phone much. The beach was amazing and dinner was exceptionally good. We were sitting right opposite of the Bournemouth Balloon (aka the Bournemouth Eye) which is a massive helium balloon. It was a beautiful view and a very tempting one. Sadly my battery went low right at the end of dinner and I had to turn my phone off to save some energy. We took a ride in the balloon and all I could capture was four photos this was where I really missed my phone and it’s simply because I wanted to capture the beautiful images right before me and nothing more! Outcome: It was the perfect ending to a perfect weekend and made me realise that my phone is just a tool; it shouldn’t be more than that. As I floated 150 meters above ground in those enchanted night skies overlooking Bournemouth I had an epiphany, right in that moment nothing else mattered to me. I didn’t care about anyone or anything; the silence and peace up there swallowed me up and made me feel whole. No phone or Facebook update ever gave me that feeling nor will they ever.


 Monday full day: I was working from home all day to catch up with my work load without interruptions. When I do that my days get blurred so I didn’t have time to set fixed timings for lunch etc. When I was done with work still on a high from the night before I logged on a website called My50 where you can build your wish list of things you want to do/ achieve in life and it sort of helps you keep track of what you have achieved. I had started my list months ago and had a few items on it already, some of which were serious things that I might not exactly have control on. I deleted those items and filled the list with inspiring things I want to do that is in my power to do and that I know I can do if I’m brave enough or work hard enough. Outcome: My phone died on Sunday and it didn’t let me take pictures of the beautiful view, I won’t have many photo memories of that night but I have a feeling, a sensation that I will carry with me for the rest of my life an experience that is driving me towards me freedom. It was purely a phoneless PRICELESS moment.

To sum it all up it was a very colorful week with quite a few challenges but I think I did achieve what I wanted to achieve with my exercise. I cannot be in a balloon everyday (no pun intended) and I know that old habits die hard but after this week I also realised how much I am missing when my head is buried in that screen. Tonight I nearly had a misunderstanding with Clark and another friend because I was trying to juggle 3 different conversations on WhatsApp at one go and there again I had another realisation; how easily we could mar a friendship because we rely heavily on a communication method that can never express our true feelings and emotions.  People can’t see your tears, fears or laughter from behind a message they cannot know if you are angry at them or juggling 3 things at once while really trying to get back to them on something. How dangerous is that in terms of human relationships?


My Conclusion: Life is those moments when you are hanging up in the air not the ones when you complain on Facebook that you spent the last twelve hours of your life at the office. I rest my case.

Love,
G

Social Media Anonymus

After a very, very…… very long pause this Malteser is back.  With weeks of almost daily encouragement and inspiration from a hidden super hero I finally decided it’s time to face the fear of that flashing cursor against that vast white blank page and write something.  It’s not the creative writing I should be doing but I’m sure Clark Kent will cut me some slack! Right?

Well the nib is rusty but the ink hasn’t quite dried yet so here we go……………….

An article in the August issue of Psychologies Magazine Entitled “Hold Me close” talked about a study that revealed that 60% of people suffer from anxiety about losing or being separated from their phone.  The article said that it’s stronger in men (70%) than in women (61%). It’s a modern age affliction known as nomophobia. The article suggested that readers should try and turn off their phone for an hour a day and slowly incrementing that time to two hours and if possible more.

I looked up from the magazine, that I was holding in my right hand, to look down at my left hand that was holding my Blackberry. I cannot even hold a magazine with two hands because one of them is holding my phone!!!! it suddenly hit me that I am part of that statistic. Very sadly this blogger makes part of that 61% and frankly it’s not exactly something to be proud of!

My life has seen some drastic changes this year and a by-product of these changes was time! Plenty of free time! Free time Galore! I’m pretty sure it sounds blissful when I say that as soon as I leave the office I’m on my own clock. I can walk down the street as slowly as I want to or get home as late as I want to because I simply can. Unfortunately it’s not something I had planned so I did have a hard time adjusting but there was help at hand in the form of Facebook, Twitter, msn, Gtalk, gmail, Hotmail, WhatsApp and BBM, all of which fit nicely on my Blackberry thank you very much.

My intricate relationship with my phone started thanks to my work e-mail. I have a demanding job and being able to read my e-mails and reply while commuting was a great help, sadly I have to say that started to happen also when I was commuting on a Saturday or Sunday to see friends!  When I started to realise that my phone had much more potential than work e-mails one by one I started downloading apps and the more time I had on my hands the more time I had to talk, chat, bbm, like, comment, upload and yes also google up useless information.  I have become inseparable from my phone!  The article struck a chord and when I discussed the topic with some friends I could tell that my reality was not that far off from theirs. It’s like a highly contagious virus that spreads around very quickly and that is a hard one to kill. When I’m home my laptop is constantly on and most of the time I’m doing pretty much what I do on my Blackberry only on a bigger screen so even if my phone is cast aside I am still doing the same thing. This pretty much tells me that I am not addicted to my phone but that my problem lies with social media.

I will not be exploring the reasons behind this phenomenon, there are a lot of more qualified people doing that already. I simply want to be rid of the addiction and reclaim my life back. I have a lot of important things coming up soon and I know that I cannot let my life be ruled by social media so now it’s the time for me to do something about it.

My name is Graziella and I am a social media addict!

I’m going to use my blog as my Social Media Anonymous. I am going to do exactly what I was told to do in that article but I will be taking it a step further I will also switch off my laptop. I will start by doing it for an hour a day and eventually try to stretch that hour and see how far I can go. I know that just like any addict I will have withdrawal symptoms and that I could easily fall back to the path of wrong doing so I’m going to make sure I have a plan of attack. I am going to make a time table for the week ahead of me. I will plan something to do for that hour every single day and will try to stick to that plan as much as possible. Since I have already made plans to meet some people in the next few days I will make it a point to switch my phone off when I meet them and keep my phone off for at least an hour.  The whole plan is to dedicate that time to doing creative stuff or things that will provide me with inspiration and of course catch up with my reading. 

In a week’s time I will be back here reporting my activities and findings. I think it would be far more interesting if I had to report back on a daily basis but I know that it would be like playing with fire!

So my dear friends wish me luck and watch this space :-)

Love,

G

P.S. Thanks Clark for all the motivational pep talks :-)

What's in a Skin Colour?

I come from a tiny island where Christianity has a very strong presence still. Every village has at least one church (normally it's more than one) and statistics show that it's 99% Catholic.  You must be wondering where I'm going with this; well growing up I was fervently thought to love my neighbour and treat everyone with respect which also included people who had a different skin colour or religious belief to mine. Up to a few years ago we were a very homogeneous country but regardless of that I never saw the Maltese people as being racist. So when you grow up in such an environment you think that racism is something of the past, something you read about in books or watched in movies and I couldn't be more wrong!
Like St Augustine once said “The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.” At the age of 24 I packed my bags and left the island to travel and that is when I started to see the world from a very different perspective.  As a Mediterranean woman I am technically considered as white but because my skin is olive somebody with a fair complexion would not consider me as such. I lived in Ireland for a couple of years and it became very obvious by the reactions of the locals that I looked different, stood out, but I could not understand it at first. I was never racially abused but I think there were instances where I may have been very discreetly discriminated. It didn't really dawn on me how differently people saw me until I moved to Belgium.
Belgium is a very complex country to explain and unless you are a Belgian or you have lived there for some time you can never really grasp the complexities of little old Belgium. Recently I had a debate with a friend because she seems to think that they are racists but I had to disagree. Belgians do actually be-friend people who come from outside the country and welcome them into their lives as friends regardless of their skin colour, nationality, tongue or religion. In my mind Belgium has become a cultural melting pot in Europe and because of this some inhibitions have been lowered and people feel comfortable to talk about racial differences. On a cold grey winter morning I was complaining to my colleagues how I felt that I had lost all my colour and that I desperately needed a tan because I felt pasty white. Next thing I know my colleague looks up at me from a laptop he was fixing and with a cheeky grin he says " But you are not white!". I was both amused and shocked at his statement. "I don't see you as white" he went on "You have colour, ha, not like me!". My friend was indeed very fair and his statements were uttered lovingly and in no way were they intended to insult but they sure made me think a lot and made me aware of something I took for granted my entire life.
After two years in Belgium I came to London and that is where the fun begins! London, so big, so vast! London, where you could drop dead in the middle of the street and no one would notice but if they had to notice it would be your skin colour. Having said that in the last two and a half years I have been blessed with friends of all skin colours and nationalities and I can confidently say that if anyone of them would see someone dropping dead, they would notice and go to help regardless of their colour. So my belief that the human race can be good still holds. Until the Stephen Lawrence court case was in the news and highly documented by the BBC that is.
I had never heard about the murder or the trial before these last few days but I was horrified by this sad story. Whichever way you look at it and innocent 19 year old boy was brutally murdered and the lives of the people around him who loved him and cared for him destroyed. Whatever the colour or creed shouldn't have mattered! Justice is always depicted as a woman with a blindfold.... is it really? The whole story is one big racist mess and even though two people have been sentenced I feel that it's just not enough. The sentences were for 14 and 15 years hardly a penalty for murder but the jury has taken into account that they were juveniles at the time of murder. Juveniles or not they took the life of an innocent person and destroyed that of many others and even though they were young I am sure they were aware that what they were doing was wrong. Normal sane young people don't go round killing other young people based on the level of Melanin* in their skin. These men denied murdering Stephen Lawrence for all these years aren't they supposed to be punished for obstructing justice too?
During the BBC documentary there was footage that was shot via a hidden camera in the apartment of the accused. When I heard what they were saying about black people, I simply felt physically sick. The second time I came across the footage I simply had to stop watching because all I could of think of was my black friends and how hurtful and disrespectful these men were to people like my friends and their families and friends. I simply couldn't and still cannot take it! I kept thinking how at the time of the murder I was a 13 year old girl living blissfully unaware that life could become a struggle or be take away from you just because you look different! This Maltese Girl in London Sadly has a lot to learn still. When I look at my country it's chaining too and not for the better I'm afraid. Illegal immigration has afflicted the island and unfortunately it is turning some people into racists. I keep comforting myself that the problems arising in my country are not based on skin colour but on socioeconomic crisis that are afflicting everyone and that if the illegal immigrants were blond and blue eyed my people would still have trouble adjusting because the problem is not down to Melanin. I pray and hope that the Maltese people won't change so that I can look all my friends in their eyes and tell them with all honesty that there are still places on this plant that welcome you with open arms no matter how you look.
But before I leave the blog for today I just want to end my rant on a positive note by saying; if people could really take away their inhibitions and look at people as human beings and not as a race or colour or creed they would really appreciate the beauty of this planet. Different is nice, Different is enriching and beautiful it's not at all scary just different. So to answer again my own question the only thing we should see in a diffrent skin colour to ours is the beauty of it! I have a long way to go and a lot more to learn but if there is something that I gathered from my travels so far is not the scenery or the food but the beauty of people, their cultures, their traditions and the COLOUR they bring to life!

Love and respect,

G

*melanin [ˈmɛlənɪn] n (Life Sciences & Allied Applications / Biology) any of a group of black or dark brown pigments present in the hair, skin, and eyes of man and animals:

New Years Resolutions are they Hopes, Dreams or meer Disillusions?

A year ago today I started to see the cracks in my seemingly perfect life. Like many people I know I decided I wanted to change my life, start over, new year new me, new chapter, new page.... well you know what I'm talking about. I decided I wanted to start a blog, go on a diet, get out of the rat race so on and so forth.
Today I decided I did want to pursue my Blog Project.... what date is it? Oh yes a year later! But like my dear mother used to say "Better late than never"! In all fairness I did go on a diet and loose a considerable amount of weight but I'm still in the Rat Race doing a 9 to 5 job. So all in all I can say that I succeeded in 1 Resolution out of 3 which is not bad at all considering most of the people I discussed resolutions with had thrown all their resolutions out of the window by the first week of the year.
On the 28th of December 2011 I sat down with my journal and made a list of things I want to do in 2012. I listed 9 things that I wanted to do which consist of 3courses, 2 different types of exercise, Volunteering, and learn a life skill. The remaining 2 resolutions were save money and find happiness! So I'm thinking if I apply myself and base myself on last year's statistics I have a chance of sitting here next year and say that I have accomplished 3 out of 9 Resolutions (Unless the Mayans were right in which case I really shouldn't bother). But let's keep the end of the world for another Blog Post shall we?
I have always been fascinated by what I call the New Years Phenomenon. I always found it amusing how people expected things to be different just because we have a new calendar hanging in the kitchen with a different digit at the end of that four figure number! I found it amusing until this year that is, when I have finally succumbed to the Phenomenon myself which made me in the end reflect about it all.
One of my friends on Facebook posted something on the lines of "It's finally 2012 and I just had a look outside and guess what? Everything is still the same". I have to agree with the statement, even though I now find myself a fully converted New Years Resolutioner (yes that is actually word)! What made me convert? The answer to that is very easy to explain, the cracks in my life have become craters and my life has spiralled out of control. I lost my sense of self and had a friend remind me the meaning of self-preservation in the last few months.
Well to summarise life has got tough and I find myself in a situation that naively enough I used to think "it will never happen to me". Much as I am aware that I am still the same person that I was 3 days ago, with the same problems and everything is pretty much the same as it was in 2011 there is something about a New Year starting that gives you hope. I think everybody is a bit of a sucker for new beginnings. How many times have you heard someone say "I will start the diet on Monday!", "Come Monday I am joining a gym!". No one ever says "This Sunday I am swapping my Sunday roast for Salad", "Tomorrow is Thursday and I'm going to start jogging" we simply all need that symmetry of the NEW BEGINNING. I think unfortunately that is what makes us fail and throw away our resolutions, that and the unrealistic expectations we put on ourselves,but let me tackle one topic at a time.

I recently realised that I need to make a major decision and for fear of procrastinating I gave myself a cut off date. As the months progressed I started to realise that perhaps I really didn't need to give myself deadlines mainly because the fact that I feared procrastination I was not going to procrastinate and a deadline sometimes is just an added stress to an already stressful situation. The truth is that the deadline was more of a marker in the calendar by which time I was hoping that all my troubles would be resolved and I would have resumed a normal happy life. Having said that I know that if by the fatidical day I haven’t resolved my issues I will feel horrible because I would have let myself down, not reached my goal so on and so forth, which in the end I know it's more guilt than I really need. Instead of a starting point I gave myself and end date. Instead of “from Monday” or “from January the 1^st” I just gave myself a 6 month deadline. Does it really make a difference? It might sound like it's work in progress so perhaps it's more promising then a start date but frankly I am still tying something major to a time-line which does note necessarily mean that it will get done.
Hmmm “Getting it done” leads me to my next point the infamous unrealistic expectations! I know now sitting here that having 9 resolutions is very unrealistic. I know now and I knew as I was writing them down that I have a very tough year ahead of me and it's very clear that Saving Money for instance will probably not feature much in my 2012, why did I put that down in my journal then? Maybe it was one of those positive moments where I was feeling on top of things and that I could do anything if I applied myself. Maybe it was all wishful thinking, maybe it was the yearning for a change that made me think that if I filled my every waking hour with an activity, my life would automatically transform itself. In reality if I did try to juggle it all I probably could do it but will it really give me what I am looking for? Will a wish list of exercise, courses and life skills drawn up on one winter morning really give me what I need in 2012? I think not! While I was writing my precious list did I take into account that I am living on planet earth, with a real job and real people in my life, probably not. In 2013 when I will be looking at my list again and see that I didn't achieve what I had listed will I be cutting myself some slack because I couldn’t attend a course because it clashed with a weekly meeting, that I didn't do as much exercise as I wanted because after a long day at the office the only thing I wanted to do is go cuddle up with my pillow or will I be punishing myself for not making the mark? I guess I can only say one thing...... watch this space!
The only true goal on that list was finding Happiness and even that is one big statement which has a multitude of directions it could go. When I look at my list I know that I have skirted around the things I really want in 2012 and I am not talking about materialistic things here. Why didn't I name those things in my list is beyond me but perhaps it's some sort of innate fear of accepting the fact that if you want the rainbow you have to put up with the rain. So maybe I should start a new journal entitled Resolutions (please note I omitted New Years) and keep it purely for Resolutions which like life itself should evolve and morph rather then simply become an unachievable list of goals drawn up on a bleak December morning. My 9 Resolutions are still things I want to do and achieve but perhaps not all in 2012 and perhaps some of them are not even important enough to be on a list that should be aimed to improve me as a person.
So to answer my own question I think that New Year's Resolutions are hopes and dreams for a better life, a better self that can become disillusions if we let them. One thing is for sure Calendars and Watches will not mark changes but only time that is passing us by, time that we are either using to make those changes, those little twists and turns we all make in our pursuit of happiness, or the time we are wasting away waiting for it to happen.



Happy New Year One and All