My 2007 Goals (not Resolutions)

I thought of changing my blogspot banner (blogspot website here) to signify my desire to make an effort to get to know myself this year and to be a better me. 2007 will be my year of re-assessment and personal retooling. My goal for this year is to start finding answers to the questions 1) who am I as an individual, as a son, as a friend, and as a citizen? 2) what do I really want for my roller-coaster life? 3) what I want to be after waving bye-bye to my teenage years? and 4) who are the people that I should really value? I feel that it's about time for me to know who are the people that considers me as an important character in their own chronicles and for me to have a more permanent list of people that I should include in my prayers. At least with this personal goal, I have a way of inhibiting myself from burning bridges, and a means of finding genuine happiness. At least I'll also know who are the people that are really worth living and dying for in this materialistic world.

7 days after saying goodbye to 2006, I realized that I am like a half or one-fourth filled matter, with several spaces of nothingness and unanswered questions. Sometimes, I find myself being cornered by several people, including characters that are strangers, acquaitances, and those that I hold dear. But even with the inclusion of those that I hold dear, I still consider myself a nuisance in the world that I belong to, even in my own environment. Sometimes, I do not know why I'm surrounded with such people and why I'm in such place.

For question number 3, I believe that there's a strong urgency inside me for me to accomplish something worthy of acclamation. For the last 4 years, I believe that I have invested in a wrong place, in an area that is not worth my capacity. I'm hungry for something that I deserve.

And for my first two primary questions, I have this strange feeling that I am not really one with my real self. I have given inconveniences to my real self, that is why my real self is a stranger to me. I shall use this year as the opportunity to get to know my real self, and for me to be one with my real self.

Until I have finally found the answers to these questions, I think it will take a long time before I can really say "I have lived my life to the fullest". While it may be true that most of this world's complications and problems are beyond my control, at least I should do something to those that I can in order to find the real me and to attain genuine happiness.

As for the more specific goals, I will really do my best not to burn bridges this time, and for the rest of my life as well. I will minimize (if not totally eradicate) being full of myself.

I prefer to use the word "goals" and not "resolutions" because as Cito Beltran mentioned in his new year's column, goals are more definite and have timetables, unlike resolutions which are no different to wish lists that usually remain as a list.