2017: An Outlook

I have both many goals and not many goals for the upcoming year. One of my goals is to post more, to write about what I'm reading in a way to help me remember or to take ideas I have and force myself to follow through on them. I like creating and contributing to the online world and I miss doing it here at this blog. The kind of thinking that writing about books and ideas take is much harder in many ways than anything else I do and I think I benefit from it as a person. So long as I don't put unrealistic goals on myself this should be a doable and worthwhile goal. Certainly more than following a million rabbit trails on the internet which I can tend to do when fatigued or bored.

For reading goals, I want to read more of what I've always been meaning to read, aka the TBR pile and also force myself to read more nonfiction---especially thoughtful spiritual and theological work. I'm out of practice with it and I sense that my own inner life and self is poorer for that. I want to focus more narrowly on the fiction I read...to read authors I already know I like and subject matters I already know I care about. This is opposite to so much of what people talk about in the New Year, but for me it is best at this time. I love reading, my relationship to reading changed a lot and endured some serious downtime as a result of blogging, so for now I want to continue discovering it in its purest sense.

For TV, I want to continue with series I love and also go back and catch up on some TV that takes Effort, like Rectify. I loved the first season, but it isn't often what I think of watching when I'm exhausted and tired. I also want to do the same with movies.

Personally, I am working on decluttering--both physically and emotionally. I have too much stuff and that has been a lifelong refrain. Can I really get to a place where I feel like I don't? I hope so. I want to also learn how to have an attention span again--spending less time on my phone/online/social media. This, I think, will help with overall quality of life. I feel like I spent a lot of time over the last year feeling angry about things that don't really matter and I just want to purge my life of that. I want to give my time and care and attention to things that matter and people that want or need it.

I actually am keeping a weekly goal list and I hope it helps me! There are of course other things I don't care to mention on my blog. :)

What do your 2017 goals look like?