New Year's Resolution

I have two new year's resolutions this year. Now that I think about it, I haven't had any new year's resolution for quite a few years.

Both of my resolutions are related to memory:

First one is to remember people's name.
I’m really bad at remembering people’s name. I’m also horrible at memorizing numbers, too. I wonder if there is any correlation between these two. During the EC, I met many new people, and I really liked them very much. Then I’d be having a half an hour conversation with them or worse yet, praying for them, and come to a situation in which I have to call their name. Some of them were even my small group members who I had been hanging out with for a couple of days by then. And I (the small group leader for goodness sake) couldn’t remember their name! Arrrgh! So I’d be like “Ah…What was your name again?” in the middle of a prayer. So lame.

When I was talking about it after the conference, somebody said it’s just a matter of attitude. True, if my life depended on it, I would probably remember anybody’s name. But it’s not that I wasn’t interested in these people whose name I couldn’t remember. It’s generally easier to remember somebody’s name if I know somebody else who has the same name. Another helpful thing for me is a story that goes with the name. Like who the person is named after, why their parents picked that name, and the meaning of the Kanji or Chinese characters for their names, etc. I don’t always have a chance to ask people questions about their names and let it sink in my memory, though. It gets very difficult when I’m meeting a bunch of people at once, like I was at the EC. We had name tugs hanging down from our necks, but they ALWAYS flipped to show the backside. Is there anyway we can make the name tugs printed on the both sides? I’d be willing to pay a few dollars more in registration fees for that.

My second resolution is to remember where I can find certain Bible verses.
I have vague memory of many verses, but I don’t know where in the Bible I can find them. Switching back and forth between Japanese and English Bible adds to my confusion. A lot of times I know which book these verses are in, but you know, there are 150 chapters in the Psalm alone. It’s not as bad as forgetting somebody’s name while I’m praying for them, but flipping the Bible pages for 20 minutes, looking for a relevant verse in the middle of a spiritual conversation is, also very lame.

I’m not that old, but my memory seems to be steadily deteriorating. It would probably do me some good to make an effort to reverse that.