I procrastinate about whether to resolve or not each year.
It’s that day of the year again. The first day. A lot of activity is associated with turning this particular calendar page. The strangest to my mind is that it’s a holiday. So what? It’s normally cold out or coolish. I won’t be spending time at the grill turning brats or using the time off take the boat out or swing a golf club. Nothing historic I can recall happened on this anniversary. But for some reason, it is celebrated. In the wee hours of its infancy, fireworks are released. Dogs howl and flee the ruckus. Somewhere when I lived in another country, people would bang on pots and pans. It woke me. I’m not much for celebrating New Year’s. I need a better excuse for staying up until midnight.
Then there are also the proverbial lists of New Year’s resolutions. They are talked about on television, written about online and in newspapers, if you can find one.
Many people resolve in the new year. Exercise equipment is purchased, so months later there are more places to hang clothes. Gym memberships increase, at least in the short term. Shopping carts are filled with healthier foods. Diaries are begun. Well-intentioned people are intending noble things.
Other resolutions are done with the onset of new activities, they are more along the line of doing away with the undesirable. Diets have us eating less. Abstinence stops, or maybe slows, the flow of liquor. Tobacco cessation is a common resolute.
There is merit in resolving. For example, putting away bad habits. Why drag those across the finish line of a worn-out year and soil the pristine page of the new calendar?
I personally don’t engage in making New Year resolutions. It’s not that there aren’t aspects of my life that could be improved upon. It’s just that I don’t want to set myself up for failure. Memory tells me only 18 percent of resolutions last into February. Why risk 82 percent failure? I once applied to a training course in the USAF that had a 50 percent washout rate. That kept me up all night when I was notified I had been accepted. I’m happy to relate that I ended up in the desirable 50 percent.
The New Year does feed the brain, the imagination. What new thing could one accomplish? What current trait or skill could be improved upon? How will finances grow? Or how will debts diminish? Change is a constant. Perhaps we can direct it better this year than we have in any of the past years.
We have a clean slate laid out before us. Unspoiled by mistakes, poor judgements or executions. Perhaps this will be the year when fewer “hold my beer” moments tempt us.
This season is also the time when we’re reminded of who we’ve lost. Television programs highlight celebrity deaths. Families recall lost loved ones. We are reminded our time will someday come, and we’ll be in that list of memories.
Until then, let’s resolve to put it off a little longer.