New Years: 5 Resolutions for Nerds

New goals come along with every New Year.  If we were successful with our previous ones, the new are welcomed with open arms.  You ready to tackle anything life and all its circumstances might throw at you.  If you failed them, though…well, let’s get that handy dust pan and do a bit of sweeping.  You can usher those long lost goals right outside to begin fresh, or you can meticulously pick through them like when you’re cleaning your closet to see which ones you want to save.  No matter how we deal with success or failure, tomorrow is the day when people look to the future and its opportunities.  We all have most likely made a resolution at some point in our lives.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be done on New Year’s, but it’s become somewhat of a cliché or tradition.  Resolutions can come in many forms—a lot of the time they pertain to something in self-improvement.  Then again, what about those sillier resolves?  You know, ones concerning entertainment and bookworm topics?  They seem to be lost in the crowds of serious, meaningful resolutions, but we can’t be grave 24-hours, 7 days a week.  At least, I hope not.  Anyhow, I’m here to bring to light the nerdy, geeky side of New Year goals.  Check them out, and be sure to comment about your own resolutions if you’d like!

1. I will polish off my video game/anime/manga/book backlog(s).  You have to admit that life has a way of disrupting our free time schedules.  Chores delay your daily gaming fixes, commitments keep you off that recliner dedicated for reading, and blogging/writing deadlines eat into those precious late hours for watching anime.  You soon find your backlog of shows, games, and books grow day by day—to make a list of them would require a mountain of paper.  The amount of things you want to catch up on slips into the double digits.  When you do finally try to chip away at it, the problem is whether deciding to start with the old or new items on your lists.  If you begin with the old, the new consistently stacks on top of the pile.  On the hand, starting with the new and shiny leaves the old to accumulate dust and possibly to be forgotten.  Some people may juggle the two spectrums at the same time, fulfilling their resolution.  However, others less fortunate will glance at their backlogs and fall into utter despair as its vastness swallows them.

2. I won’t break my entertainment budget next holiday season.  Money doesn’t grow on trees.  It has a way of sneaking out and disappearing from our back accounts.  Seeing huge discounts and sales all over the net and in stores tantalizes even the most scrupulous of savers.  It doesn’t help when an item on your backlog pops up with a big percentage sign next to it.  All that cash we scrambled together over the year seems to fly from our grasps, especially in the holiday season.  A small paycheck makes it even more agonizing.  I think a possible solution would be to shut down and lock up our computers during such times of the year.  It would be simpler—out of sight, out of mind.  That would make my blogging impossible for a short period, but…it might just be worth it to save those precious, crying pennies in my wallet.

3. I’ll go on Facebook/YouTube/ect. only an hour a day.  You’re probably wondering what happened to taking baby steps with this one.  Only an hour a day?  I know, it’s hard to physically click on that logout button sometimes, but your muscle memory should pull you through the motion.  How much time do you really need to be on those social media sites anyway?  Come on; be honest—most of the time you find yourself searching pages and timelines just to pass the minutes in the day.  Minutes grow into hours, and you pause your browsing to munch on those cookies in the kitchen.  You feed your boredom by boringly clicking on links and watching videos.  It is stuff that you never imagined caring about, yet there you are looking at it for the sake of staying online longer.  Don’t you realize you could be working on that huge backlog of yours at the moment?  Or, you know…doing other vital human activities like work?

4. I’ll keep my books on bookshelves.  I won’t let them remain on the floor and gradually build up into towering stacks.  Oh, and I’ll finally alphabetize them even if it takes me a few days.  That naturally won’t happen; I haven’t cleaned up the ones that are currently in my room, and it’s already the end of the year.  Nevertheless, I can dream, right?  Sometimes things get even more complicated and cluttered when you don’t have enough shelf space to fit everything.  Your increasing collection of books just can’t resist spilling out all over where it shouldn’t be.  There’s a fantasy world in the corner, and a few science fiction realities on the nightstand.  The ultimate solution would be to save up and purchase another bookshelf.  That would be awesome…if you had the room for another bookshelf as well.  Now, you just have to save up to knock out and extend a wall of your house.

5. I’ll backup the important files on my computer.  You’re working all night on a report, a blog post, or a short story one night, and things are going great.  Words and descriptive phrases are easily coming to you.  The blank space in the Word document is quickly filling up.  You save it onto your hard drive—everything set for tomorrow for you to continue.  The morning comes along, and you power up your computer to hear it produce a loud crack and sizzle noise.  Hold down the power button!  Turn it off!  You crack it open to see a small section of your hard drive melted.  Yep, that baby won’t be functioning any more.  Your important files have gone poof!  That’s it; they’re not there anymore.  Forget about all those saved games, too.  And all you had to do was take the time yesterday to back them up on a thumbdrive, or…I could have used that external hard drive my brother specifically hooked up for me.  Yeah, losing every scrap of poetry and fiction you’ve done is not fun.  It breaks you a little inside.  I’m kidding, of course, but there is a gaping hole where some of my stories used to reside.

Regardless of whether people keep their resolutions, the New Year is something you should enjoy with friends and family.  Greet the coming year with a cheer or united grumble.  Let’s take each day one at a time and relish life to the fullest.  Happy New Year, everybody!

Hey!  Yeah, you.  You New Year over there!

*image from Google Images