Year after year, people make New Year’s resolutions. Almost nobody keeps them past January or even thinks of them after the first month. Most of these resolutions are made in good faith that we are going to stick to them but usually they are too ambitious and we end up giving up before February.

I am no different in this. My resolutions are usually made on the spur of the moment and not planned out entirely. I end up forgetting about them pretty quickly with the hustle and bustle of every day life.

This excuse only takes me so far. As 2010 starts off, I plan on changing this. Most of my goals for 2010 aren’t all that complicated and pretty generalized. Really that is the way it should be. If I go for something outrageous, then I may not complete it. I do have one goal that might be a little lofty but what fun would it be if I just played it safe.

My main goal for the year altered since when I first thought of it. At first it was to complete a triathlon. It isn’t that I don’t want to anymore but I am adding on to it. Not only do I want to do the triathlon, I want to really motivate myself and drive myself for something better.

When it comes to setting fitness goals, I am hands down terrible at it. I don’t know why but the usually fitness goals of losing weight, getting stronger, etc doesn’t motivate me. I see them more as side effects for what happens when you workout.

Most likely, you will lose weight if you consistently run or get stronger if you continue to lift weights. While you can hit peaks with this but that isn’t the reason why I do all the things I do.

I don’t run because I want to lose weight. I don’t lift weights to be able to lift 10 more pounds. I do it because I am living and I want to be healthy. I think about what my life would be if I couldn’t walk or run. How would that feel if I had to sit there in a wheelchair and watch everyone else run by? It isn’t like life would stop if this happened to me but while I can, I will do everything I can do. Plus I enjoy it.

I think about how different this is compared to the rest of my life. In most things, I am a goal-oriented person and strive to complete them. This is one part of my life where this doesn’t hold true. I don’t have any true fitness goals that truly motivate me.

I think most of the people who know me would agree that I usually put others in front of myself. This is probably why it is hard for me to make goals like getting stronger because they only serve myself. This made me think about how I could change this. How could I do this so it just doesn’t serve myself. This is what I came up with.

My goal this year is to walk/run at least 2000 miles. For every one of those miles I walk or run, I will donate $1 to charity. So by the end of the year, I should have at least $2000 to donate not counting the monthly donations I already do.

This means I have to walk/run at least 38.4 miles a week. Some weeks I will probably go further and then there will be the weeks where I don’t go too far so I am not going to try to worry about getting to 38.4 miles every week. Most likely I am going to be able to run at least half of these miles per week. The other part I will need to walk.

So far this week, I have walked/run 25 miles. I have a long ways to go. So much for having an easy goal.

As I walked around on this cold Christmas day night, I thought back to these words. These words I will always remember and Katie who spoke them.

I thought back to this past year. Was I living life to everything that I wanted it to be? The memories of this year came rushing back in. It was a great year. There are so many moments that I hope to always remember but what I will remember most are the people.

As I thought about the people who came, left and continued to stay in my life, I realized one thing. It has been the people in my life that I truely cherish. Without them, those pieces of time wouldn’t be the same. They help make and shape the person who I am today.

I will continue to make new friends and say goodbye to some as time progresses. I do hope that the ones I do say goodbye to, they remember that they will always have a place within me and are welcome back.

As I think to what this new year will bring, I hope that it is as great as this past year has been. I will walk down the path of taking chances and enjoying everything that life brings to me.

About a month ago, I was asked what makes me, me. This is actually kind of an odd question when I started to think about it. The first question in my head was what defines me. The second question that followed the first question very quickly was how do I answer the first question. I could probably list off a bunch of adjectives but does that really makes me, me? That is a question, even now; I am not sure what the answer would be.

It isn’t that I don’t know who I am but there are so many things that I would want to include in a question like this. It is pretty hard to define yourself in a paragraph, let only in a real conversation and not go on and on. So instead, I have decided to try to define myself with using only five words. While these words may change over time but as of today, they are who I am in five words.

• Romantic
• Dreamer
• Logical
• Adventurous
• Generous

That is the me of today. How would you define yourself if you only had five words?

Valentine’s day is one of those days that people either love or hate the day. May it be trying to find the right romantic gift or not having a date at all or having to throw up because of all the sappiness going on, it is hard not to have an opinion on this romantic commercialized holiday.

To me, whither I have a date or not, it is a day I love. It lets you show your love ones that you care about them. Don’t take me wrong here, there doesn’t need to a special day to be called out for me to show how much I can love someone. It should be shown everyday but by calling out a day, you can specialize that day in your heart. It is kind of like a birthday or an anniversary, these days are arbitrary. They are solely based on one’s own decision to celebrate these days or not.

It might be because I am a romantic at heart that this day interests me. Stories like Aaron Nace and Rosie Hardy Flickr love story appeals to me because of the emotional draw it has on you. Two people separated by an ocean meeting on the photo sharing site Flickr pulled together by the common interest of photography. It is kind of a love story that you really only see if movies but throughout the world, things like this happen daily.

So I urge you to reach out and show your love ones that you care on this day. Take action in your life, you never know what will happen.