I’ve always said I thought New Year’s resolutions were silly. If you want to make a change in your life, then just make a change—why wait for a certain date on the calendar to do so? But I was really just being lazy and afraid of change. And failure. I don’t like to do things I’m not reasonably sure I can do before I actually do them, or at least not look stupid doing them. I know—I’m such a risk-taker. It’s not going out on a limb much to say it’s probably a control thing for me.
The best way to control whether you look like an idiot while doing something or not is to—not. The best way to not fail at something is to not even try it. The good news is I recognized that I hold these super healthy beliefs before I passed them on to my children, I hope. Instead I say things like, ‘What have you got to lose?’ and ‘No harm in trying!’ while telling myself that I’m not lying to them.
While I see how setting new goals for the new year ahead can be helpful to many people—I’m still not sold on the whole thing. Maybe I’m not doing it right. The following list is what happens when the world’s worst resolution-maker makes a list of New Year’s Resolutions:
1. Be less sarcastic, especially with my children. As if that will help…they’re such good listeners.
2. Don’t let my obsession with authenticity prevent me from being the encourager my kids need. ‘I can tell you’ve been working on your toe touch! Your feet almost leave the ground!’ Like that?
3. Strive to be forthright and not passive aggressive with those in my life. Unlike somebody I know.
4. Exercise so much that I become annoying about it and my friends avoid me so they don’t have to hear about it.
5. Be less critical when my friends mix up ‘there/they’re/their’ and ‘you’re/your’ because, really, we’re all extremely busy and it does take so much work to use apostrophes in texts and emails. Plus, plural and possessive aren’t all that different, anyway. (Of note: my appropriate use of the conjunction for ‘we are’.)
6. To stop reading so much into brief text replies such as: k, sure, and yep. They are just words that can be typed quickly, not reflections of the sender’s anger or bitterness over whatever they just agreed to. They probably typed it at a stoplight. No big deal. Maybe they will elaborate later. But if they don’t—it doesn’t mean anything, nothing at all. Sure.
7. Stop procrastinating so much, after we’ve all caught our breath a bit in January. My birthday is the 25th so right after that I am really gonna get going.
8. Stop rationalizing mistakes and unhealthy patterns of behavior. I mean—certain so called ‘character flaws’ can be used for good. You say stubbornness, I say tenacity. You say verbose, I say thorough or detailed or comprehensive or all-inclusive or meticulous.
9. Become the kind of family that brings the garbage can in from the street on the same day it goes out.
10. Set reasonable goals and be honest with myself about what I can accomplish. Start with #9; it’s never gonna happen.
Happy New Year!
Elizabeth Quinn makes her home in Northeast Jackson with her husband Percy and four children.
