January 2007: Resolutions Need a New Name

It dawns on everyone, eventually, that New Year resolutions are kind of futile. You realize that no matter how strong your motivations are to get back in shape or to stop stealing cars, the burst of righteousness usually doesn’t last much into March. Despite this understanding, I usually make them anyways, I just don’t call them resolutions. That word carries too much history of failure.

For me, the motivating factor for change is more of a reaction to the gluttony of the holidays. I’m not fond of Christmas like most people. It’s not politically correct to dislike Christmas but it’s become too overwhelming to hold it in any longer.

For months, life’s singular purpose is to get ready for Christmas and, even if you have nothing to get ready for, you can’t escape the trauma it causes. Like second-hand smoke, the incessant Christmas music is everywhere. You don’t want to but you have to breathe it anyways.

Then, after weeks of advertising, rich foods, and garish decorations, the New Year is like a breath of fresh air. Kind of like a lighthouse guiding me through the eggnog fog, January 1 is the time I know relative sanity will return to the world. I get that sudden whoosh of feeling that I just survived something unpleasantly sweet and Spring must be just around the corner.

I feel it coming and get ready to try to harness that pent up energy in an effort to make a relatively effective, albeit short lived, burst of health. It feels good and for a few weeks it seems like I’ve just made a startling turnaround to a fitter me. It doesn’t matter that it probably won’t last because if you accept that you will fall back into the pattern of relative slobbery then the pressure is gone and, with it, the spectre of failure. Try to stretch the fantasy out as long as you can and, if it’s the only time all year that you think about making yourself a better person, revel in the fleeting glimpse of your true potential.

A few weeks of positive effort will have a lasting effect on your emotional and physical health. They say a change is like a holiday and, in these times of stress and unhealthy lifestyles, few things could be more important.