Resolution riot
The pitfalls of the new year
KERRI WOLOSZYN STAFF
2007. A new year. Time to stop eating all those holiday leftovers and boxes upon boxes of chocolates. And, for many people, the new year also brings about the creation of a new year’s resolution. Ah yes, those vague notions about what we would surely love to change about our lives and ourselves, made as grand and drunken declarations on New Year’s Eve. We may not even remember them the next day, and surely by next New Year’s Eve we have so fully forgotten them that we use the same one all over again.
We seem to have this obsession with starting over and second chances. It’s as if once we get through 365 days we are given some kind of absolution. On December 31 we look ahead to what the next year will bring and look back at all the horrible mistakes we’ve made. We make resolutions that seek to rectify these mistakes or alter our fate as human beings. We try to become better people. Then, three weeks later, we indulge in a large piece of chocolate cake, smoke a cigarette, and are back in front of the TV.
As a child I thought that resolutions were only made by TV characters. They were sort of like Chinese take-out that came in those fancy white cardboard boxes with red writing on them. Both are lovely in theory, but are things only the characters on TV knew how to find. Or keep. And, perhaps as a result, I have never once made a new year’s resolution in all my life.
It all seems kind of arbitrary, don’t you think? OK, so we’ve been indulging over the holidays, but really, couldn’t we make the same kind of lofty resolution in July? In fact, the time of the year is probably part of the problem. Who wants to do anything besides watching TV while eating cake and smoking cigarettes in January?
The real problem with so many new year’s resolutions is that they are designed to make you feel worse about yourself right off the hop. Eat less, work out more (i.e. I’m fat), quit smoking or drinking (i.e. I have an addictive personality). What’s wrong with a little vice now and again? The other problem with resolutions is that they are virtually impossible to keep. I have heard that this is due to the fact that they are often far too vague. When making a resolution one is supposed to set specific goals, look at the positives and results will materialize. But, frankly, I think most resolutions are not vague enough. The trick is to make your resolution so generic that it is impossible to fail.
And so I’ve decided, since I’ve never made a resolution for myself (and don’t plan to start anytime soon), why not focus my energies on helping other people on the road to resolution success? Here then, are my new year’s resolutions for you that, if you choose to accept, I promise you will be able to keep.
1. This year I will sing a new song — You are in the car, a song comes on that you’ve heard maybe once, you sing it. Because no one hates that person who, when trying to sing a song that they’ve heard maybe once, muddles up all the lyrics and it comes out like a mixture of humming and singing. No one.
2. This year I will go to the gym — You could go once. No one said anything about working out.
3. This year I will learn a new skill — Like cross-stitch, or using chopsticks, or learning all the lyrics.
4. This year I will eat less and play more — Exactly what you eat less of and play more of is entirely up to you.
Happy new year!
