So...its 2010. Does anyone really care? I don't. Did anything change when the date went from 12/31/2009 to 1/1/2010? Other than the date, not really. I'm still a thirty year old married male with a degree in marketing and a retail job. My wife is still my wife, and so on. I woke up the morning of 1/1/10 and went right back to work, I didn't have the day off.
So if you're expecting a retrospective on 2009 based on the title of this post, you'll be dissapointed, because that's not what this is. 2009 was good to me, and that's all there is to it.
I don't really understand the whole restarting everything on New Years Eve/Day bit. Why do we do that? Most fiscal years aren't calendar years. Most birthdays are not on those two days - IMHO, a year begins and ends on your birth date. There is an actual marked transition there, as tied into the calendar as it is.
So what the hell is a marketing year? Its nothing, its an arbitrary term I just made up. There really is no marketing year. Marketing is measured by projects, campaigns, promotions, and a whole host of other things, many only loosely tied into date of any sort.
That's the way I choose to live my life. Birthdays and anniversaries are important dates to remember, because they actually symbolize passage of time in a relevant way to that person.
What's marketing got to do with it? Everything and nothing, both at once. Marketing is what I do, so its obviously tied into my life and its evolution and creation. But marketing has nothing to do with what date it is, or what time it is.
If you get all excited by the new year thing, good for you, that's great. But if you see me celebrating wildly on some other day, I may have just made a useful or realistic transition, on my own terms, and with my own skills and abilities. I didn't do it because everyone else did, I did it because it was time for it, and it felt right.
So go ahead, be one of those people who tries through February, and fails in March. Come see me in April, or July, September or December, I'll still be at it and kicking ass...because I want to be, not because of some weird tradition nobody really knows anything about.
So why'd you make your resolutions? What do you want to accomplish? Why didn't you do it before? Why now?
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Hey Mark,
ReplyDeleteI'm with you - generally I'm not one who makes resolutions, goals, or 5-year plans. But I do have dreams and visions for myself. Usually they start out amorphous and grow into something more concrete. For example, over the last 5 years I've grown this idea of a living a lifestyle around my passion - something to do with personal development, writing, and sharing experiences with others. I'm still not sure what the endgame is, but I'm definitely making progress, most recently with the launch of my blog Insanely Serene. I wrote down my accomplishments from last year and it was more than I realized, so the exercise was beneficial. And I did write some concrete goals for 2010, but I'm ok whether they actually happen or not.
It's a work in progress.
Thanks for the catalyst.
Linda
I'm all about making plans, but mine will start and end when it makes sense, not based on an arbitrary time that I think they should be accomplished in. I have goals, I have objectives, and so should everyone else. But many of the things I do are like yours - amorphous and ever changing - there's almost no way to really declare a beginning or end to any of them, they're ongoing.
ReplyDeleteObviously if something should take a short time and it doesn't, then I need to kick into a higher gear, and I don't need a period of time to tell me that...usually its my own self, or someone who goes "hey, what about that thing?" and I go "Oh, fuck...I should work harder on that." or something similar to that.
That's awesome that you accomplished more than you thought you did...I'd kill to have that opportunity. I'll bet most of it just naturally happened, you weren't freaking out over not having something done in April instead of March, etc.
Work in progress...as it should be. Awesome.
Thanks so much for your comment.
Yes, I like the go with the flow attitude, trusting one's own inner guide and timelines. I do trust myself, and I'm working on letting go even more of arbitrary pressure and demands...I'm tired of regimentation.
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