In the new year
Posted September 17th, 2009
My feelings about religion have waxed and waned over the years but ever since I was in college I've spent the time around the Jewish New Year thinking about the person I want to be in the coming year.
I leave resolutions about losing weight or cleaning my office for January first. This time of year I look back at my guiding principles and measure myself against them. For example, do I really take the time to understand what someone else is telling me—what about understanding what they aren't telling me?
Some years I make big changes as a result of this look back and most I make small changes and recommit myself to half-followed goals.
This tradition began in my early-twenties I had to make some major changes. I had some close friends who were very smart and very funny but very critical and dismissive of other people. One day I caught myself in the middle of chiming in with something funny but mean about someone I liked and respected. I just stopped. That's not who I wanted to be any more. To my surprise, I was able to easily change this part of who I was.
It can be hard to change when the people around you don't. But, you know, sometimes when you change the people around you do too. You are breaking the cycle enough that it changes their rhythm.
About a month ago Bill Dudney and I taught an iPhone Studio in Denver. Chad Fowler attended and we spent time talking in the evening. I can't tell you what it is, but there's something about Chad that makes me a better person when he's around. I worry a bit that there's a conservation of goodness in this world and that I'm making Chad less better in return.
In any case, as this new year falls a little over a week before a milestone birthday I'm probably thinking more about "the rest of my life" than usual. As I look at my specific goals and principles this year I will try to measure some of them against whether they will improve both me and the people around me.
This post originally appeared in the Pragmatic Life blog.
