Welcome to the Year of the Badass

For better or worse, I am totally one of those people who makes resolutions each and every new year.  I've been ritualistic about it in the past: I used to write my goals for the new year on pieces of fancy paper, hide them in my jewelry box and revisit them a few times throughout the year.  The only problem with that process is I'd spend a ton of money on awesome paper and then forget my resolutions.  Also, since I always resolve to save more money, buying expensive paper pretty much ensured I was starting off the new year doing the opposite of what I hoped to achieve financially.  Whoops.  Writing these New Years resolutions felt cleansing and promising in the moment, but it wasn't.  The whole process was a facade.  My goals looked really pretty written on pulpy, hand made paper crafted by starving children in Indonesia (or something like that) but they were merely different versions of the same cliched resolutions: save money, get in shape, find a boyfriend.  New year, same shit.

Then, as 2011 was turning into 2012, my amazing friend Jesse decided to shake up this whole New Years resolution business.  "2012 will be the Year of the Baller," Jesse declared sometime in late 2011.  What is a baller, you ask?  Urban Dictionary defines the term as any thug who is living large.  Jesse's idea behind the Year of the Baller was to get us to live large, too.  (Maybe Jesse wanted us to be thugs as well, but he wasn't clear about that at the onset.  Also, I keep picturing Allen Iverson when I think about thugs.  No offense to The Answer, but I don't think he and I have similar ideas regarding thug life.  Although, come to think of it, Mr. Iverson should resolve to save some money in the new year, too.  Just sayin'.)  Essentially, Jesse wanted to motivate us to live in the moment; to have fun and to not dwell so much on consequences when making choices about what we wanted to do.  For example, I dined at not one, but TWO three Michelin star restaurants in 2012, one of which was the French Laundry.  Then, a week later, I hiked my first 14,000 foot mountain peak.  Baller.  (I also started running, which was kind of cool, too.)  When she wasn't globetrotting, Melissa put most NFL defenders to shame while simultaneously putting a bunch of blondes in their place.  Angela got her dream job and we all got to see Sarah kill it on stage in a Project Y play.  Jesse bought a house and a hot tub and we've all been straight tubbing ever since.  Baller, baller, baller, baller.  So much of the Year of the Baller was about choosing to ball out together.  My friends and I spent more time with each other in 2012 than we ever had before.  Naturally, we had more fun than we'd had in years prior.  We also saw Boyz II Men live... for the first time.  The Year of the Baller was all about making spontaneous choices to live our lives to the fullest, consequences be damned.  I spent too much money, drank too much champagne, never slept enough and had more fun than I could have ever imagined.  Sure, I made a ton of poor choices, but I don't regret them because those decisions were made keeping in mind the mantra What would a baller do?  2012 taught me to think less and act more.  It was wonderful.

This is how we kicked off the Year of the Baller.  

Since the Year of the Baller was such a success, my friends and I deemed 2013 the Year of the List.  The plan was that we would all achieve a different goal each month of the year.  Our list items ranged from practical (save more money) to random (re-learn Zorba the Greek on the trumpet) to downright silly (make a viral YouTube video).  While we all conquered a handful of our twelve goals, none of us were able to check them all off the list.  I ran a half marathon, went to at least one new baseball stadium and drove across the country to live in Colorado with my brother for five weeks.  While those things are pretty rad, that's only three out of twelve items.  Maybe the Year of the List failed because it was overwhelming or maybe because we weren't reminded of the things we set out to achieve in 2013.  Despite the fact that we had a color coded Google doc itemizing each of our list items for the year, we never held each other accountable for what we wrote in that spreadsheet.  This was basically the electronic equivalent of my hiding my new years resolutions in my jewelry box as I had done before.  

We needed 2014 to hit with a vengeance.  Thankfully, Jesse coined 2014 the Year of the Badass.  (For clarification, a badass is similar to a baller, but just without the necessity of spending a lot of money.  Allen Iverson, take note.)  Being a baller in 2012 was such a success because it wasn't about achieving specific things, but more about changing the way we thought and behaved.  The Year of the Baller worked because we acted like ballers as often as possible: we were thugs who lived large.  Well, we were still us, which is quite un-thugish, but we lived larger than we ever had before.  So that's progress.  The Year of the Badass has potential for the very same reasons.  Referring back to our pal Urban Dictionary, badass is defined as someone who radiates confidence in everything he does.  A badass carves his own path and does what he wants, when he wants, where he wants.  Maybe 2014 is about charging after what we want instead of just going for it.  Maybe I don't really care this year about doubt, about failing or even about succeeding, necessarily.  If this year is all about being a badass, then maybe everything needs to be done with a tinge of reckless abandon and maybe I don't care if that is a good decision or not.  

Urban Dictionary also says a badass is an ultra-cool motherfucker.  Happy 2014.  Here's to becoming the most badass, ultra-cool motherfucking versions of the ballers we already are.

Holiday Data:
Distance Saturday (12/28): 6.71 miles
Time Thursday: 58 minutes (8'39 splits)
Cumulative Distance Since Blog Started: 171.81 miles
Cumulative Time Since Blog Started: 27 hours, 30 minutes (1 day, 3 hours, 30 minutes)