Our Maine Street's Aroostook Issue 4 : Spring 2010 | Page 58

Caribou

As we begin the Second Quarter of 2010, we’re trying to
keep track of the progress we’re making regarding our Chamber
New Year’s Resolutions! Sigh....changing our mindsets is the main
hurdle, and from there: anything is possible. At the beginning
of the year, I googled around, in case there were things I could
be resolving, which I might actually follow thru on (code for I’m
mostly already doing them).... The lists related to our health and
wellbeing is pretty standard: stop smoking, get fit, all kinds of
those things. Yawn. I keep thinking if I read enough magazines
about getting fit (on recycled paper), it counts yes? Evidently
not enough: I now have two, not three folks, two frequent office
guests and chamber friends, and my five year old, who are not
hesitant to share: I am getting older, and wider. Huh. What I did
find was a whole big patch of websites which will help you track,
measure, and thus have the motivation to continue with your
resolutions. Imagine. Sites which will measure our cement-edness...good.

Ok, so as we call for a moment of silence, and collectively
suspend our disbelief, I know the definition of crazy is something
about expecting a different outcome while we’re doing the same
old same old. So, I am going to sign up to track my resolutions,
and I have been posting them (and many other things) to our
blog: Caribou Notes. Perhaps this will keep us on track thru the
end of mud season! The fun thing about part of this is, I can
set a few smallish resolutions, which I can assign the ladies in the
office to do. They are quite often not amused by these edicts, but
what can you do. Edicts: it’s all in the spin.

So, first our mindsets. We are working on keeping
the motivational sayings catchy, and updated, which we keep
planning to chant every day. Several times a day even, which
seems a bit cult-like, but still...

I had a visit at the first of the year, from a business
person who said to me: I should be thinking about what I will
do differently in 2010, than I was doing in 2009. I did not have
an answer. I still don’t, but it has given me something new to
dwell about, besides why and what we should be tweeting, CO2
emissions and recycling. I am going to stew about this some
more, and I welcome anyone’s input. I do believe we ought to
be changing, and d