My mom asked me what I was going to blog about today, and I couldn’t give a specific answer because my mind wasn’t made up yet.  I considered broaching the race drama triggered by Ferguson or reflecting on the challenges of raising a son with standards in such an intolerant tolerant society.  However, there is nothing like having a growing baby or saying good-bye to my dearest feline friend to motivate me to reassess the priorities in my life. For right now I want to set politics and moral drama on the side and instead discuss my goals for the new year.

It has become popular to flaunt the idea of not setting new year’s resolutions because they are bound to be forgotten anyways.  I think that is an excuse for laziness and irresponsibility.  Each year the newly added headstones in our cemeteries are witnesses to the unknown number of years in our time bank.  I personally know five people who died this year. It is certainly a sobering thought; I would be foolish to not take each death as a reminder to make the most of each new day that dawns, in addition to not taking for granted the ones with whom I can share it.  Evaluating how I conducted myself during the past year and writing down ways to improve myself are two specific ways I can be a responsible steward of the life, and all it contains, that has been entrusted to me.

In order to maximize my time I created goal categories. I have five categories for personal goals, and I plan to use a similar category structure for the family goals my husband and I will set together.  These five are: physical, mental, outreach and ministry, family and maternal, and spiritual.

Physical involves specific ways I will improve my health and fitness priorities. For example, I want to walk the steep hill by my house at least once a week. I also want to increase the number of push-ups I am able to do in one session.

Mental is all about challenging my mind. I plan to increase my reading for the year and also write book reviews for the titles I read. Resuming my language studies is also on the agenda.

Outreach and ministry is all about what I do for people outside of my family.  It includes social goals, so that I don’t become a hermit, and plans for encouraging others.

Family and maternal reflects specific ways I can improve my family’s health and well-being. I put down some ways to reduce our budget, and I also included placing more emphasis on my son’s social interactions.

Spiritual goals are challenging since there is a faith aspect involved in all of the other categories.  However, I do believe it is important to set clear goals for enriching my Christian walk. I haven’t set any as of yet, but I know I want to do more Scripture memorization so that might end up being one of them.

As I mentioned above, my husband and I plan to set goals together for our family.  These will include marriage goals, financial goals, parenting goals, and possibly a few other categories.   I am not saying that one should be inflexible or a killjoy in order to keep one’s new year’s resolutions.  I do believe a well-ordered life can accomplish great things. Having the best of intentions does not necessarily mean that one is living intentionally. In fact, people with the best of intentions can inflict great harm because they do nothing at all while only meaning well.  Let’s get our lives in order so that we can fully experience all that 2015 has to offer.