2011: The challenge

Got it! My challenge for the year 2011. Notice the word “challenge”, not “resolution”. I never had any success with resolutions so have decided they’re a thing of the past. A challenge is much more exciting, and more often than not, can be something that doesn’t allow for deprivation (as many a resolution can do). Although that said, my first New Year’s challenge in the year, 2009, was to go 365 days without chocolate. If that’s not deprivation, then I don’t know what is – although I did it! Then rewarded myself with three months of chocolate just before my wedding. Perhaps not the smartest of moves but I lived to tell the tale.

The next year, 2010, was my year of running. I was inspired to read an article about a man in Hamilton, New Zealand – my home time. Reported in the regional newspaper and my former place of work, the Waikato Times was a news story about a man who had spent 600 days running. A half hour run every day – including the day his daughter was born.

A half-hour run each day? Surely that’s manageable. Even in rain, hail or snow you can handle going out for half an hour. So January 1 2010 rolled around and off I ran, straight up to the top of Mt Victoria, overlooking the beautiful city of Wellington that is the capital of New Zealand. It was a slow start, but a rewarding one, and so the runs continued, more on flat terrain than uphill but runs nonetheless. Until the flu took hold 83 days later.

As I looked back on yet another year, wondering to both myself and anyone who would listen “Where has the year gone?” I began searching for my next challenge. And there it was. Since arriving in London almost four years ago, I’d started collecting books. My local charity store sold books for £1 – and given that it was just down the hill from Hampstead, the books were of high quality. I wasn’t ashamed to be reaping the rewards of the Hampstead housewives, that’s for sure!

Yet the rate at which I collected books was in stark contrast to the rate at which I read them, so what better challenge to give myself than a literary one. 2011 is my year of books.

Challenge: to read 111 books in the year 2011.


NB: I've since found out I'm not the only one!

http://lifeisshort-readfast.blogspot.com/2010/12/111-in-11-challenge.html