The Year of the Five Fs

I'm declaring '09 the year of the Five Fs:

• Faith
• Family
• Fitness
• Finance
• Future

What's all this nonsense about you ask? Baby, I'm a planner. I kinda geek out when a new year rolls around because I get to think of challenges to overcome. This year, it's F⁵.

Do you care? I know you do, and that's why you're still reading, so here's the scoop on how I came up with F⁵:

• Faith. You gotta put God at the center of everything you do. That's freakishly hard, especially for someone like me who is inherently selfish and lazy. For a while I was in the habit of starting every day with devotional prayer and reading. I miss that feeling of starting the day grounded. Also, I've been reading the Bible since I was a tiny anklebiter, but I've never deliberately read the Book in its entirely. Given these two facts, my first goal in '09 is to read the entire Bible. As an evangelical Christian, my first priority is making sure I'm right with God; Living as He intends for me to live, and this is done through prayer and reflection. There is so much in the Bible about doing it, but this passage stands out to me the most, from Philippians 4:
  

  Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
  

  Therefore I should read The First Manual Ever Written.
  
• Family. I believe that you are defined by the relationships you nurture. (That's a major reason I'm so anti-Obama. Look at what relationships he's been nurturing and you get a clear understanding of his loyalties.) After God, the most important entities in my life are my wife and four tiny humans, then it's my extended family and church family (meaning, other disconnected Christians). When it comes to nurturing these relationships, I've fallen short. That is why my second goal in '09 is to nurture relationships with my loved ones.
• Fitness. My health is going down the tubes. Every year I break a personal weight record. I'm now knocking on the door of Type II diabetes (the fat, lazy kind) and my triglycerides are way too high. This goal will require the most drastic changes. I need to completely revamp my habits and start kicking the ass off myself, so to speak. I plan to lose 1 1/2 pounds per week in '09. If I can do this, then I'll be at my ideal weight. You can track my progress along with me on my fatman blog: http://thetempleoftheturtle.wordpress.com/
• Finance. This is my hobby. This is what I really enjoy: Personal Finance. I love it so much that I've dedicated an entire blog to it: http://www.theapostleoftheturtle.com/. Of course, just because I enjoy it doesn't mean I'm the best at it. We're still wallowing in debt, which is the ultimate badge of dishonor. My financial goal for the coming year is to have all debt paid off except for the Big Three: AmEx, Student Loans, and House.
• Future. The Final F of the Fabulous Five. Here I am, approaching 34 and I'm still not sure what I want to be when I grow up. My wife and I have a blossoming photography business, which is a likely candidate for the future. That's why my final goal is to plant the seeds to grow our business in coming years. What does this mean exactly? Stick around and you'll find out.