To Keep or Not to Keep: A New Year's Resolution

At the start of the new year, most of us must have made various resolutions for 2016, but as we head into the second month of 2016, some of us are still trying hard to keep up with our resolutions while some of us may have already forgotten about them.

Why then do we do this?

I recently read an article by Juli Fraga in The Guardian titled 'False Hope Syndrome: Why We'll Quit Our New Year's Resolutions This Weekend.' Here Juli Fraga talks about false hope syndrome which is defined as having unrealistic expectations of self-change. There is a scientific reason behind this. In order to succeed and reach our goals, we must set realistic expectations for ourselves. Later, Juli states an example of Mark Zuckerberg's goal of running 365 miles in 2016. When broken down, it works out to a mile a day which really is a manageable goal. When we set unrealistic targets for ourselves, we are eventually setting ourselves up for failures. It's like trying to put five liters of water in a bucket that can hold just four.

Why should we decide to change ourselves after a particular date? We should go about doing it from the moment we realize that we need to change something in our lives. When you realize that you need to lose weight or stop smoking, what is the point in waiting for the start of the next month to do that? The earlier you start the better. We have all heard of the saying 'The early bird gets the worm.'

My goal for this year, thus, is to write a blog post every forth night. I don't think it is a really difficult task and I will do my best to accomplish my goal.

Painting and Patience

Painting is not important. The important thing is keeping busy.

                                                                                                            -Grandma Moses.

Grandma Moses was right when she said that the most important thing was to keep yourself busy. I recently started painting during my free time. Now when I say painting, I don't mean painting on canvas like  Van Gogh or Picasso, I mean painting houses with a friend. I saw it as an opportunity to learn a new skill. I thought, it would be a simple task, but I was wrong. Painting is not as easy as it looks. After a while I soon began to realize that there is much more to it than dipping a brush in a bucket filled with paint and maneuvering it over the wall. 

Painting is back breaking work. I did not expect it to be as hard as it was. But I got used to it soon. Over time, I not only got better at painting but also learned a very important virtue - Patience. You need to have a lot of patience when dealing with the home owners. They are not always satisfied with your work, no matter how much effort you put into it. And most of the time they are unhappy with the colors, even if they are the ones that chose them in the first place. I once painted the same wall eleven times in different shades of green. Yes, it did get me annoyed, but guess what, I now know that there are more than just three shades of green.

Another thing I learned while painting is to pay attention to detail. As with any project you take up you have to pay attention to every minor detail, the same goes with painting. Even a single bad spot can make your whole wall look bad. I soon learned that if you do one thing well the first time paying close attention to all the minor things you save so much of time and effort in the long run.

There is a saying that goes, it is as boring as watching paint dry. But after taking up painting, I can confidently say that watching paint dry is not a boring thing. It gives you a feeling of accomplishment on a job well done !

This job gave me the opportunity to meet so many different kinds of people. I not only learned to paint but I have also developed qualities that I can use in different walks of life.