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Monday, January 04, 2010

Lack of resolutions



I have never been big on New Year's resolutions. Life is too full of guilt already without adding a list of new things to feel guilty about for not achieving them. As far as I'm concerned, every day is full of New Year resolutions and I try to keep the bar pretty low so I can achieve at least 50 percent of them. Getting out of bed each morning is on the list. It is challenging, but achievable most of the time.

The problem with resolutions is that they inevitably lead to excuses. And excuses seem to me simply rationalizations for failure. If you make a resolution and don't achieve it, it boils down to you not really wanting to achieve it in the first place. I tend to cater to the Yoda-like philosophy of not "trying" to do something. Either do it or don't do it. And don't make excuses.

Let's face it, you are in debt because you are spending more money than you make. You are fat because you eat too much and don't exercise enough. And you are rude and nasty to people in general because it takes a lot less energy than being polite and smiling alot. So rather than resolving to get out of debt, lose weight and be a nicer person, you need to ask yourself if you really want to stop buying things, eating fried foods and flipping people off when you drive.

If you want to change something about yourself (remember you can't change something about someone else), the first step is to really want to change it. Duh.

I thought about making a resolution here to write in my blog every day. My track record in 2009 was pretty spotty. But then I apply my own philosophy to it and realize I'll write more when I want to, not because I create an artificial resolution that I have to.

For now I'll just stick to getting out of bed each day. I've got toddlers that can help me achieve that one for sure.

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