{"id":695,"date":"2010-12-30T15:43:30","date_gmt":"2010-12-30T22:43:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/?p=695"},"modified":"2010-12-30T15:52:23","modified_gmt":"2010-12-30T22:52:23","slug":"assessments-predictions-and-resolutions-happy-new-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/?p=695","title":{"rendered":"Assessments, Predictions and Resolutions – Happy New Year!"},"content":{"rendered":"

December is the month to look back, pretend to see forward, and resolve that the things we’ve failed miserably to accomplish in the past will somehow — with a mix of grit, will, and magic — finally happen.<\/p>\n

It is the time we assess, predict, and resolve.<\/p>\n

First, there are the assessments.\u00a0 For some reason they follow the decimal system.\u00a0 We come up with endless ‘top ten’, top twenty’, and ‘top one hundred lists.’\u00a0\u00a0 Of the ‘top ten’ claims and lists I’ve seen, the most audacious is that of Time.com.\u00a0 They claim to have the ‘top ten of everything in 2010<\/strong><\/a>.’\u00a0 According to Time.com ‘everything’ conveniently falls into less than 50 categories.<\/p>\n

Amazing.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>So here’s an interesting way to spend (waste?) an hour of your time.\u00a0 Google “top ten for 2010”.\u00a0 You probably won’t have time to go through the 8+ billion entries.\u00a0 But along the way you’ll find the top ten buzzwords<\/strong><\/a> of 2010.\u00a0 Can you say ‘vuvuzela?’\u00a0 There is\u00a0 everything from a list of the top comedy movies<\/a><\/strong> to a list of the top ten depression blogs<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 I love Google!<\/p>\n

Then there are the predictions.<\/p>\n

I find the urge to predict the future peculiarly interesting.\u00a0 We know ‘next year’ predictions rarely come true.\u00a0\u00a0 There’s always something we didn’t see.\u00a0 Some event no one could predict. Unconvinced?\u00a0 Read J. Conboy’s piece on the ‘worst predictions for 2010<\/strong><\/a>.’\u00a0 The Google Wave that never came ashore.\u00a0 The netbook sales that never happened.\u00a0 The jobs that never appeared.<\/p>\n

We know (at least I do) that when we say this stuff it amounts to a wild-assed guess.\u00a0 So we package our predictions instead as ‘bold’.\u00a0 Bold means it is a real crap shoot.<\/p>\n

When we come to grips that we are much better at taking stock of what was than predicting what will be, we turn to the ‘resolution.’\u00a0 Specifically, the New Year’s Resolution.<\/p>\n

There are many definitions of resolution.\u00a0 You can look it up (or click here<\/strong><\/a>).\u00a0 But the New Year’s Resolution usually follows this one:\u00a0 “the act of resolving or determining upon an action or course of action, method, procedure.”<\/p>\n

The New Year’s Resolution is typically personal.\u00a0 We resolve to do this, to achieve that, to become something (or someone) else.\u00a0 It is as if we’ve admitted that we can’t predict the future and have little control over what is ‘out there’ …\u00a0 so at least we’ll make a stab at regaining some portion of self, some piece of dignity, some glimmer of a more hopeful lifestyle.<\/p>\n

So we resolve.\u00a0 And most of us fail.<\/p>\n

Actually, those who keep statistics on such stuff say that only 46% succeed past six months<\/strong><\/a> (I would have guessed a higher failure rate).\u00a0 And those who study this also claim that regardless of whether you keep a resolution or not, simply the exercise of trying makes a difference<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

So we try again.\u00a0 Knowing that next year there’s a very good chance we’ll be back wrestling with the same old issue, striving for the same elusive goal.\u00a0 But that’s ok.<\/p>\n

So here’s to 2011.\u00a0 And to never giving up on making resolutions even when we know the risk of failure is high.<\/p>\n

Happy New Year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

December is the month to look back, pretend to see forward, and resolve that the things we’ve failed miserably to accomplish in the past will somehow — with a mix of grit, will, and magic — finally happen. It is the time we assess, predict, and resolve. First, there are the assessments.\u00a0 For some reason…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[10,18,97,99,98,5],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=695"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":699,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695\/revisions\/699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}