OK I think I need to fess up – I have no resolve. When all around me are making their hit lists of how to be better, braver and brighter, I am twiddling my thumbs.
I hate New Year’s resolutions. The very construction of a list gives me the heebie geebies. It is a ticket to failure …a “to do” list with nothing crossed off…it is sworn evidence of my inherent allergy to rules, duties, or maybe, just a monolithic fear of not succeeding.
How I ever passed an exam is beyond me - study was always a chore unless I found inventive ways to entertain myself - recording my history notes in funny accents and similar peculiarities.
And according to Wiki only about 12 per cent of us ever achieve our New Year’s resolutions.
So give me the fireworks and the bon homi but save me from an strategic approach to personal improvement. While all my friends are diligently scratching out a plan for life, I am trying to improve without parameters.
I have ill-formed goals stewing away like a good pasta sauce – the best kind – one with no written recipe.
I am afraid sometimes I expect magic. I will fall asleep one night and wake up five kilos lighter, feeling new and refreshed. I will keep my lotto ticket and randomly check it a few weeks later only to find I was the winner they had been waiting to hear from; the man of my dreams will come knocking on my door looking for directions. Yep I know…it is fantasy.
But strange things do happen. Who would have thought that a young Miss Cloake would one day meet a handsome Mr Dagga and fall in love. It happened here in Adelaide and one of my fondest media memories was the announcement of their impending nuptials. I wonder if they are still together?
In a way, I am convinced life is just that random and to see it any other way sucks out the spontaneity.
Strident planners scare me. I have unspeakable thoughts on this topic.
What happens to your resolutions when you get hit by a bus, the list still fresh in your pocket?
I wonder if people made such promises to themselves during times of hardship and horror…during plague and war and famine and drought and flood. Maybe they did. From what I can gather the tradition dates back to ancient Babylon, when farmers resolved to return borrowed farming equipment.
Ancient Babylonian joke - Why do farmers wait till New Year to return their neighbours tools? So they can Hoe, Hoe, Hoe at Christmas!
Call me irresponsible, call me wayward, ill-disciplined and wrong-headed but New Year’s resolutions seem to me a privilege or maybe an indulgence for the well-heeled control freaks of the world.
Was it John Lennon who said “Life is just what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans”…an astute observation, I reckon.
I would rather just throw it all out there and see what happens….$100 on the red thanks..you never know, I might just get lucky.
Judy Sykes
2 months, 1 week ago
I’m with you Michele - I’ve never made a new years resolution that hasn’t been broken by the end of January! Its a load of crap but there’s heaps of us who need this sort of stuff to motivate them to do anything at all. So maybe not so much the privileged ones but the hoads of conforming sheep that this country seems to be full of!