[500 Words] Day 1: Starting off

I am announcing here and right now that I'm starting this challenge: to write at least 500 words for 31 (and hopefully more) days. I am one day late though; it's day 2 today and I'm specifically told not to play catch up, but hey, it's MY 500 words right? I'll just do this whole thing shifted by one day. The point of announcing this publicly is to have some sort of accountability, a bit a pressure to get me to stick to it. I am painfully aware that this post will most likely only get 10 pageviews. Better than nothing though right?

This is one of those resolutions that is bound to fail, like one of Brad Pitt's marriages. I've been meaning to write more for a while, (like, a whole decade) and, with the exception of the first year of fatherhood, when I blogged nearly once a week, I have not been successful at all. I wrote a total of 2 blog posts last year and I'm hoping to eclipse that number by the end of the week. This year I'm gonna give this commitment thing a shot. I ought to be good at it, I am married, after all. The reason I'm giving this a more serious try this year is because I have been lamenting my lack of progress as a person. Or rather whatever changes I've made as a person have not been made willfully, but instead more pushed along by the circumstances: marriage, childbirth, etc. I think it's time that I actively do something to improve myself, starting with my perpetual resolution (that word has lost its meaning) to read more, write more, exercise more.

It's kinda funny that in the past, wanting to read more or write more was simply about self-improvement. Now that I am a full-time translator, it's actually become necessary training for the job. Since transitioning to become a translator in 2016, I've constantly felt the limitation of my language ability. In particular, too often I stick too close to the source language, to the point where the target language may be unnatural. I don't have the arsenal of vocab that I would like to have and am often stuck when trying to paraphrase something, at which point I go back to sticking close to the source as a safety. Reading and writing more should help me with these issues.

I read somewhere that simply stating the problem means you are halfway to a solution, but simply setting a goal does not get me anywhere close to achieving it. Not only do I have to have a clear idea of the goal, but I must have some idea of the path I need to take. So in order to read more, which is a vague goal at best, I will resolve to read 30 minutes before I head to bed every night. To write more, I will resolve to write at least 500 words (Chinese and/or English) every night before I read. To exercise more, I have signed up for a gym membership and will let the reluctance to see the money go to waste propel me to the gym for 3 times a week. Just a few baby steps at a time, and hopefully it'll add up. Please send me a message if you see me miss a day, I definitely need the pressure.