String Cheese - Article Nineteen

Old promises help ring in New Year

By ARYN CORLEY

Someone asked me a question just the other day.

“What’s your New Year’s Resolution?“

I stared back at the person with an utterly blank look on my face.

Honestly, I really haven’t given it much thought. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I made a New Year’s Resolution. It’s not that I’m perfect and could do without self-improvement. I’d love to have another set of arms. I could probably do something to make myself better in some way.

But why?

Most folks make New Year’s Resolutions to give themselves a goal to work forward to in the coming year. According the usa.gov website, among the most popular resolutions people make every year are pledging to quit smoking, saving more money, getting fit, and reducing stress. While those are admirable and somewhat lofty goals for some people, I don’t know if any of those goals are realistic. Sadly, I don’t know of anyone who has ever bragged about keeping a New Year’s Resolution. It seems resolutions are doomed to fail and meet their peril only mere hours after their declaration.

Much like a celebrity marriage.

If you listen carefully, you can hear the desperate cries of help from these poor resolutions as they go careening off the cliff of human nature and smashing onto the rocks of our collective pathological behavior below.

There goes one now. Did you hear it?

Do we unnecessarily set ourselves up for failure? I feel sympathetic to people who try to quit smoking. Just when the smoker has gone several weeks without “sparking up,” a precipitating factor occurs which facilitates a craving for a nice, slow drag on a cancer stick. Usually around tax time.

I used to be a smoker myself and found quitting to be very difficult. However, my decision to quit wasn’t made out of a hackneyed attempt to follow tradition. Rather, I needed to stop smoking because it was expensive and, according to my wife, I looked like an idiot with my cigarette dangling precariously on my lip like some kind of third-rate James Dean.

So, instead of lighting a cigarette when I get stressed out, I opt for banging baby hamsters with a large hardcover book.

Not really.

Breaking a resolution must make people feel bad. Nobody likes to fail. That is, of course, anybody outside of government service. Starting off the year with one strike against you is depressing. That’s pretty bad if you’ve made a resolution not to be depressed.

Instead of making silly resolutions to eliminate some aspect of our personality, why not make a resolution that will enhance it? It’s our imperfections that add flavor to who we are as people. It gives our lives meaning. If people were perfect, marriage would be pointless.

Instead of declaring to stop biting fingernails, declare that fingernails must be bitten with chocolate on them.

I also see no harm in making an easy to follow and universally acceptable resolution. For instance, it would be difficult to find anyone who would disagree with a resolution stating one would use more hand sanitizer. From a public health perspective, that’s a very good resolution to have.

The bottom line is that resolutions, whether they’re genuine, or just a feeble attempt to get a member of the opposite sex to acknowledge your existence, should be well thought out and attainable. Otherwise, you’ll beat yourself up all year long.

After a brief pause, I responded to the person I was talking to.

“This year,” I said. “I’m not making any more bad jokes.”

Whoops.

There goes another one...