No Back-To-School Resolutions for Crazy

All over the place, but started, I believe, by Geeky Mom, people are recording their goals for the coming academic year. I had thought about coming up with some of my own, but every time I sit down to do it, I stop. I can't make myself make resolutions for this coming year. Not on the blog anyway. What gives? I make resolutions all the time - why not make them in this context?

I think it all goes back to the fact that I don't use my blog as a way to be accountable about my work. In a very real way, my blog is quite separate from my work. I've never used the blog to track the amount of pages/words I'm writing; I've never used the blog to make promises about work so that I'll complete tasks I need to complete. Yes, I have complained about things related to work, or I've vented stress, but I don't really think of my blog - or of my blog audience - as a policing agent that makes me (or helps me to) produce (in a concrete way - obviously the blog and my audience does help me to produce in abstract ways). (Incidentally, I'm not saying it's bad or wrong to use blogs in that way - I know that other people find blogs really useful in this way, but it just hasn't been my tendency.)

But then that's not the only thing. It's also that I think of my goals as private. Yes, even my professional ones. The goals that I tend to publicize are usually not the real goals that I'm working on, but rather goals that I know will be achieved prior to the next review (for example), which at least to me means they're not even goals. To me, goals are like fantasies, kind of, except you work really hard to make them happen. But if you tell people about them - especially if they really are lofty goals, ambitious and possibly-unlikely-to-happen goals - then when you don't achieve them it becomes a big deal, or people think you're big-headed, or people try to tell you that you can't achieve them, or whatever. On the other hand, if you keep your goals close to the vest and protect them a bit and nurture them, then maybe they will happen. I'm superstitious, obviously.

But so I make goals, but I make them in my journal. And they're always open to revision, and they're generally not particularly practical. And I often don't really believe that I will accomplish them, but I work really hard at them anyway. And maybe that's a little weird, but that's how it's always worked for me, so maybe it's ok?