I’m sharing my 2019 Resolutions here, as part of this post that I’m making.
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In 2019 I intended to practice (for the entire year) the following abstinences :
- No alcohol
- No cigarettes
- No coffee
- No playing computer games (except my own, or playing with the children)
- No screens in the bedroom (update July 2019 to : No screens after 9pm)
Rationale
- While I enjoy (and often healthily) all of those activities/pleasures, I also easily fall into the habit of using them in a way that takes me away from the present, to numb or distract.
- I want to force radical presence, and I want to take an approach which is simply removing things, rather than forcing a particular practice.
- I also want to practice and prove my will and discipline to stick to a challenge like this, even through any exceptional difficulties that may arise.
- I want to do big personal growth in 2019, and have it driven by my own choices, not by external strife as has been in the past
(I’m also putting out for 2019 to be a year of much bliss and peace, but the personal growth forced by these abstinences is likely to bring to the surface much long buried past stuff). - It is also only one year; I know that I’m capable of that, and I know that great benefit will come of it — therefore it is important to me to stick to this.
Alternative activities
- Making and drinking fresh veg and/or citrus/fruit juice
- Herbal tea drinking
- Going for a jog
- Going for a walk
- Doing the 6-pack-in-30-days exercises
- Doing a P90X
- Working on making my own computer game(s)
- Meditation
- Sketching
- Writing
- Working on the cubby
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I made this list last year, and I’m confident I’ll make it until the end of the year (today is the 17th November) without having drunk alcohol or coffee, or having smoked. The computer games I had a lapse on, but have recovered from. The screens in the bedroom I haven’t quite managed. No lesson there to share with you, just full disclosure.
