New Year's Resolutions have intrigued...
New Year's Resolutions have intrigued me for a long time, so I chose this yearly tradition as the cornerstone of the plot for Flippin' the Script. I love the idea of resolutions, but in recent years, haven't been able to convince myself to actually make any.
The holidays are a time of hustle and bustle, rushing here and there, shopping, cooking, decorating, and visiting friends and loved ones. Part of me loves this hurried, unpredictable schedule of activities, and another part of me longs to return to the predictability of other times of the year, when not much is really happening…say, for example.... the month of March.
I can't help but wonder if the appeal of making resolutions doesn't lie in the fact that we actually plan to keep them, but maybe it's a "Tomorrow is another day" kind of kickoff to the rest of the year when we actually will be able to get up in the morning and have the time to drink ten eight-ounce glasses of water every day. (Because between watching Christmas plays, going caroling, attending cookie swaps, and standing in crowded lines at the mall, no one really relishes the idea of ingesting that much water, because it will inevitably lead to the act of rushing to locate the nearest lavatory.)
So, during the holidays, we are content to let our normal routines slide, but we start musing over our coming resolutions, almost as a way of apologizing for not keeping the ones we've already made. But who are we apologizing to? Maybe just ourselves?
My take on resolutions is simple. Why wait until January 1? If I look up, and it's August 10, and oops, I haven't been keeping my resolutions, why not pick up and start over on August 11? There's no reason to feel guilty and make myself a million promises about why next year will be better. As far as I'm concerned, tomorrow is next year.
I'm just not convinced that resolutions are the magic pill for getting things done. Never have I found that attaching the 'resolution' label to something helps it get done any better or faster than any other method. For example, I would have better success simply writing down what I need to do on my calendar every day. At least, that way, it's staring me in the face each time I look at it. I guess I'm trying to say that if there is a real need for change, tomorrow, whether it's January 1, April 26, August 17, November 20, or December 8, is as good a time as any to start the process. You may be wondering if I made any resolutions this year. Well, of course. I couldn't resist-I was writing a book about resolutions, so I guess you could say it was all in the name of research. But am I actually keeping them?
Hmm...This year I decided that my lone resolution would be to take my vitamins every day. So far…not too shabby. But let me also say that it's a really good thing that vitamins aren't up there on the survival scale with, oh, say...water.
© Aisha Ford
