This is a reprise of one of my Outtakes columns that proved a favourite when it ran in the Examiner a few years ago. It still applies...
And so it’s New Years Eve, and this finds you preparing for the big event. Perhaps a neighborhood party, or the Downtown Countdown, or just a quiet evening at home with an aging Dick Clark.
You know what comes tomorrow, don’t you? No, not the hangover, silly. We’ve long since figured out how to avoid those. We’re adults now, and have learned from past mistakes…
Indeed.
Thus, you will be up at the crack of dawn, pumped and ready to take on the New Year with your sights set on the requisite New Years’ Resolution. Perhaps, for you it’s to take up running, or take down the Christmas lights to avoid having to look at them in July. Stop smoking. Eat less, or read more.
Whatever it is for you, let me state for the record that I stopped making New Years resolutions long ago. After so many years of seeing your resolve dissolve, and evolve into disillusionment, I have decided that going against the grain is the only way to go.
In other words, if you want something to happen, resolve to do just the opposite.
Let me explain. Like most of you, I have seen so many resolutions, avowed and sealed in good faith, die on the vine in spectacular fashion.
They say opposites attract? Well, whatever it is that my New Years resolutions attract is decidedly opposite. I have vowed to lose the bulge, only to pack on the pounds. I have resolved to read more, only to fail in picking up a book at all.
One year I resolved to take up walking. In the end, I wound up running. Is that a failure, or an acceptable evolution of one’s resolve? The Reverend Robert Schuller, the guru of all things Positive, would conclude that I succeeded splendidly. But did I succeed in my original resolve?
Sometimes I fail in such spectacular fashion it’s impressive. One year, after seeing the February half-marathoners swarm through East City like bees, I resolved to attempt the 5k route the following year.
In reality, I ran the full half-marathon instead, finishing in less than two hours. Impressive for a first-timer at mid-life. But gentle reader, did I succeed in my goal to run the 5K?
No.
A few years ago I resolved to run a full marathon, and like the good soldier I actually did the preparation. Right to the end I did, including all those training runs that had us turning over dozen of kilometers over several hours in the dead of winter, in readiness for an event that would be held in pleasantly warm weather.
Did I do the marathon?
Nope.
Not only did I fail miserably, I went to considerable effort in doing so. Had I known I would pull out, I could have halted the training early on and saved myself the muscle spasms. But no, I took the training right to the end and got my gold star, before quitting.
For 2009 I resolved to work less. In reality, I’ve worked the kind of hours that would fell a Clysdale. I also resolved to spend less and live debt-free, having entered the year without a mortgage.
The reality? A trip, a new roof, a new car and a darling little cottage on a quiet lake in the Haliburton Highlands we didn’t need.
And so, I no longer make New Years Resolutions, but rather New Years Contradictions.
Thus, I resolve to eat like a pig, spend like a thief, work like a demon and in between all of that, sit on my duff on the couch in my free time and get no exercise whatsoever.
If it all works out, 2010 should be a great year.