Resolute.
I’ve spent this week thinking and planning and backwards engineering. I’ve reviewed where I am and where I’d like to be. I’ve SWOT’ted and self-appraised, soul-searched and wish-listed. I’ve considered every option open to me and a few that aren’t. On the grounds that the company I work for makes an enormous profit flogging the phrase in PowerPoint presentations, I even took some blue-sky thinking out of the box and ran it up the flagpole to see what ducks stuck. (It didn’t work for me but I think I had the wrong sort of blackberry – mine just sat there, defrosted and stained the tablecloth dark purple). I’ve introspected, retrospected and consulted my inner child (she still wants a pony – and a penguin)
In short, I’ve navel gazed until my eyes crossed and I got a crick in my neck (must do’s - phone electroshock back lady, buy new belly ring) and I have made the following New Years Resolution.
My New Years Resolution for 2007 is that I am not going to make any resolutions.
Not one. I’m going to wing it. The whole damn year.
It’s exactly the same resolution I made at quarter to seven last Sunday evening.
However, since then I’ve been told that resolving not to make any resolutions is shortsighted of me (or words to that effect – I was so crushed by the tone in which it was delivered that I paid little heed to the exact phrase). What I should be doing is listing all the things I was grateful for in 2006 and stating all the things that I intend to achieve in 2007, break it all down into realistic targets, cross the t’s, dot the i’s and then get on with it.
Because I value the person who gave that opinion, I’ve thought about what they said all week. I’ve thought about it to the extent that all the joy and exhilaration I felt about having a bright new year spread out in front of me went as flat as a bottle of pop with the top left off. Instead of doing all the things I was all fired up about doing, I’ve spent the week stomping round the house, muttering to myself, sitting up half the night crying and then sleeping too late in the morning. I’ve crashed down crockery and snapped at F until I wouldn’t be at all surprised if top of his list of resolutions was a desire to get the hell away from me.
I can’t blame someone for their point of view. I’m not blaming them for how their point of view made me feel. That I had that reaction is no-ones fault but my own. Mine for paying more attention to someone else’s point of view than I paid to my own gut instinct about what felt right, even if I couldn’t justify why it felt right. It’s my fault for not realising that the person who made that remark obviously has such a low opinion of me that they automatically assume that my not making any resolutions means that I’m going to sit around with my finger up my ass and do bugger all for the next twelve months. I’ve never done bugger all in my life before - why should I suddenly start now. It’s my fault for caring that they might think that anyway. Above all, it’s my fault for feeling that I need to justify to anyone any decision I chose to make about my life. I don’t.
And the price I’ve paid to learn this lesson is one week of my life. I’ll never get it back.
Therefore, after much careful thought and not a bit of crockery smashing, I’d like to clearly and for the record state the following.
My New Years Resolution for 2007 is that I’m not going to make any resolutions. I’m going to wing it. The whole damn year.
I now intend to get on with the rest of it.
January 8th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
the only resolutions that work are FUN ones. Ie resolving to do something that you would enjoy.Most resolutions are plans to do something you hate. Pound up and down hills exercising, never eating chocolate again. Instead make reaolutions like ‘an unlimited supply of high grade chocs’. I will buy a silly bag every month. Or I will get a dammned pony.
January 8th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
>What I should be doing is listing all the things I was grateful for in 2006 and stating all the things that I intend to achieve in 2007, break it all down into realistic targets, cross the t’s, dot the i’s and then get on with it.
not a bad approach if you’re mad keen on formalising real life.
but why pick on jan 1? surely you’ve got enough on your plate already what with the drinking and the… well, drinking?
tell that person you’re not making ANY new years resolutions and that you never do. you ONLY make march 13th resolutions.
if s/he asks “why march 13?”, ask them “why jan 1?”
alternatively, apply the sal approach which is: “i couldn’t be arsed.” which i think you’ve done.
January 9th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
This year is not really so much different than the one before it, and resolutions are basically little reminders of the goals you want to meet. That said, wing it. Have fun. Be happy. And Happy New Year!
January 9th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
OH, and if your inner-child ever gets that penguin or pony, mine wants to be invited over for a play date to see it/them.
January 10th, 2007 at 9:24 am
I rather think that I’m the person you think took the top off your bottle of pop. And actually I didn’t. You took umbrage with my own personal musing of why I found it hard to leave Newcastle for the first time in my life and assumed that I was directing it at you. You also assumed that when I said that I intended to look at what I’d done in 2006, the good and bad and to think about what I’d like to do in 2007, I was meaning that you should do it. I wasn’t. I was talking about how I was approaching it. That’s it. Personally, I think that to turn dreams into a reality, the first step is to dream them. Just my opinion. I rather think that you’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick. I naturally care about you because I’ve been told that you’re my sister and I see no evidence to the contrary (despite teams of private investigators working on it). I’d like you to be happy in your life. And that’s as far as my involvement goes. I fully and totally understand that the rest is up to you - from how you choose to live your life to the decisions that you make in doing so and have never said otherwise. I’ll only comment on your lifestyle if I feel that you’re imposing it on mine. So put the top back on your pop bottle and I’ll assume that the apology is in the next post.
January 11th, 2007 at 6:11 am
On the whole, I don’t have a problem with New Years Resolutions - although I agree with Sal and think that New Year is the wrong time to make them and that it can (and should) be done at any time of the year. Setting your goals, reminding yourself of what you’d like to achieve and figuring out how you’ll achieve it, isn’t a bad thing. It can be empowering.
I agree too, that when we list our resolutions we don’t tend to balance them with things that we could do and would make us happy with little or no effort. Whether that’s because we automatically focus on the negatives, the things we haven’t done or would like to change about ourselves, or whether it’s because theres some remnant of a puritan “all things that make you happy are the work of the devil” mentality we’ve absorbed, I don’t know.
The problem is that most of the time, the things which give us the greatest sense of achievement are the things which weren’t easy to do. If you want to run a marathon then you have to put in the training and that involves getting out there and pounding the streets, no matter how tired you might feel or what the weather is like or what’s on the telly. That bit isn’t fun but the cheering crowds and sense of achievement at the end of the race makes it worthwhile (or so I’ve been told).
Balancing out more difficult resolutions with an equal amount of “self-indulgent” ones. Definitely. But there does need to be a balance.
But it’s not making sure that your resolutions balance the stick with some carrots which has made me resolve not to make resolutions.
For the past three years I’ve sat at the kitchen table on New Years Eve and listed everything I wanted to accomplish in the year ahead. The trouble is, my resolutions have become self-limiting prophecies. I’ve accomplished them (well nearly all of them, I’m resigned to the fact that I’m never going to lose 6 stone or have shiny hair every day!). But that’s all I’ve accomplished. By listing them, the things I wanted to do because they made me happy or gave me a sense of achievement, became just one more thing that I had to tick off before the end of the day.
I’ve realised that by making resolutions, by setting goals and aims, by listing what I wanted to do and how I would set about doing it, my life has shrunk until it’s now so small it pinches. As a result of this, somewhere along the way my mouth has become pursed and I’ve forgotten how to laugh.
I never used to make resolutions. I’d wing it, with a vague idea of how I wanted my life to be and not a clue about how to articulate it, nevermind achieve it. But I’d always had the instinctive knowledge that not only would everything always turn out the way I wanted - it would exceed my wildest expectations. It always did.
I’ve not lost that belief. Now all I have to do is trust it again. I can’t do that by tying my dreams to a ten point plan.
January 11th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Come to brooklyn. We have candy-cane houses and um… cellophane skies. Or something.
January 11th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
yes but do you have PONIES ???
January 12th, 2007 at 7:45 am
there is this guy who keeps saying he wants to sell me horse, but i’m not sure that qualifies…
January 12th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
does this mean Brooklyn is the Niddrie of somewhere else….