New year's resolutions

Since I turned 16, every single year on the 1st of January I have sat down and written a list of the things I would like to accomplish during the year. Normally, I like to include categories, with a long list of movies and books, places to visit, people I want to meet and things I want to be better at. Seeing my lists on the 31st of December is always very humbling. I fail at almost everything I tried to accomplish, because I vastly underestimate the amount of time that everything requires and the amount of energy and willpower that specific skills need.

Over the years, I have lost many of my lists… the ones written on paper end up (maybe accidentally) in the trash can and the digital ones get lost in the memory of an old computer that for some reason I will never use again. But from time to time some of these lists reemerge and I can see what my past self set out to accomplish, and then, in general, I feel quite proud! It is true that most of the things I wanted to do over the years I did eventually, just not when I said I was going to. Over the years I managed to do many of the things I wanted to do when I was younger. I hope the trend continues into the future. In my current list there are a few things that for some reason I am feeling some resistance to doing: learning German, hitting the gym more often and learning a few piano songs. Maybe a way to put some more external pressure on myself is to have this reminder here for my future self. We will see.