Like a lot of people who blog, I was tempted to write a post on Jan 1st to talk about New Year’s Resolutions.

I resisted the urge, but mostly because I was busy celebrating Christmas Day #2 with the Millers/Huitsings (video evidence to come!) and not because I didn’t have thoughts.

I know a lot of people get down on resolutions because it seems that we’re so darn bad at keeping them.  But I’ve found that in my life that’s just an excuse to avoid having to feel bad about ourselves, and at least one other guy smarter than me tends to agree.  Resolutions provide a bit of structure for us to rally around, and in my life, structure is good - though I’m admittedly more adept at realizing this with my mind than putting it into practice.

On January 1, 2008 I made a few resolutions and was able to follow through better than usual but essentially only about 50%.  In coming up with ideas for 2009, I decided simple is better.

In short, I want to live out the idea expressed above by having a bit more structure in my life.  This can manifest itself in many ways.  But I’m going to share two specific, practical ways with you today.

Drawing on a little inspiration from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air as seen above, I’m going to focus my attention on Running and Reading.

I hope to run consistently at least 4 times a week during 2009.  I’m going to try and keep track of my progress with the sweet Nike Plus I got for Christmas.  And I’m still planning on throwing my name into the lottery for the NY Marathon.  The hope is that all that running will wake up “the little guy who lives in my head” so I can learn more about how to “not quit when things get hard in my life.” (watch the video if that doesn’t make sense).

As for practical application #2, it’s my belief that no single thing I could posssibly do will affect me as much as reading.  That’s why I’m setting a goal of reading 25 books during 2009.  I always keep an updated list of books I’ve read in the Shelfari widget on the left sidebar of this blog, and I hope the accountability of sharing this goal with the world will help in my endeavor.

So that’s the plan for 2009 - anyone else planning any resolutions?