New Year’s Eve is upon us, and you know what that means: resolutions. Though there may be four or five people who make New Year’s Resolutions and actually stick to them, the vast majority of people don’t.
The few weeks of January are rife with astrays full of half-chewed Nicorette, jam-packed Planet Fitnesses, and cabinets full of Special K cereal bars. We allow ourselves be bought by promises, dreams, advertising. We buy new clothes, pedometers, and food we’d only eat if shipwrecked on a desert island, with the illusion of having wrapped ourselves in magical chrysalises only allowed to form on January first.
Funny thing is, by the end of the month, no one’s refusing the wings at your Super Bowl party.
So, here’s the deal, and I’m going to give it to you straight. Mano a mano. New Year’s Resolutions are a joke. Don’t bother making them, and, by God, don’t bother sharing them.
Sure, you’ll walk around your company’s parking lot for a week, bundled up to your eyeballs. You’ll bust your ass to show up at a Weight Watchers meeting – standing room only. You’ll buy yourself a Ninja and pulverize the bejesus out of every fruit and vegetable you can get your hands on. You’ll buy a yoga mat. An organizer. A Zen garden. A Veggie Delite. A trash can for your car. Things are going to be different. You can feel it.
Truth is, they probably won’t. An arbitrary date on a calendar, ironically smack in the middle of winter, isn’t going to turn you into Charles-Atlas-meets-the-Dalai-Lama. You’ll still be the same person – the person who gets mad, who gets hungry, who gets tired, who gets hurt. And you have to embrace that.
So instead of ‘getting yo’ fitness on’, attempting to enlighten yourself beyond the limits of humanity, or trying to break enduring bad habits, try taking it easy. Try taking stock in and appreciating the person you are, the person you’ve become, a person who doesn’t need to resort to forcing himself to improve. Give yourself credit for bringing your children through an entire year unscathed, for the roof over your head, for the air that you breathe, for what you contribute to society. Give yourself the gift of acceptance. Don’t step on a scale, or try to squeeze yourself into clothes two sizes too small, or beat yourself up for every perceived failure.
And if you must participate in year-end masochism by making resolutions? Resolve to be happy. Accept yourself. Accept others. Be nice. Allow yourself to dream, to laugh, to wonder, to allow your life to unfold as it should. Enjoy the small moments. Leave the dishes in the sink. Make footprints in the snow. Read a freaking book, for God’s sake. The whole thing. Take a long, hot bath. And don’t apologize. Don’t apologize for any of it.
And maybe you’ll arrive at the door of the next year a little less worn, a little less tired, a little less flawed. A little less eager to leave yourself behind. Because you won’t need to.
Hopefully, by year’s end, you’ll find you never need to make a resolution again.
Got it? Good. Now, step away from the kale. It’s all going to be okay.
