Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Let's Get Some Resolutions Up in This New Year

Some people think New Year’s Resolutions are stupid, on account of “no one ever keeps their New Year’s Resolutions,” but that’s not true – eight percent of people keep their New Year’s Resolutions. So for every 25 people you know, two of them aren’t full of shit. Pay attention to which of your friends keep their New Year’s Resolutions, kids – those are the ones you can trust.

I think there’s some value in aspiring to better yourself, even if you’re one of the many people who fail their New Year’s Resolution within the first week. You learn more from failure than you do from success, right? Sure, sure you do.

In the past I’ve taken a bit of a different approach to my New Year’s Resolutions. I’ve always preferred to psych myself up for a couple of weeks before I get started. I’ve always felt, I’ve got all year, so what’s the rush?

Of course, it’s this lackadaisical attitude that’s keeping me from getting anywhere in life. As I mentioned yesterday in my Year in Review post, I haven’t really accomplished much over the past year – I’ve just sort of maintained. Not that there’s anything wrong with maintaining – it’s a far sight better than backsliding. 2013 has been better than some of the years I’ve had, to be sure.

But I’ve been thinking (I know, I know) about how much younger I’ve not been getting (lots!) and about where I want to be in 2015, which doesn’t come naturally to me because I’m an ISFP and as such, I don’t believe the future exists. But it does and while I can’t know exactly what Future Me will want, I think I have a pretty good idea.

I don’t want to overwhelm myself with too many resolutions, but I’m still feeling some of the residual optimism from successfully quitting smoking in 2011, so I feel like I can handle two this year. Also, I don’t recall making one at all last year, unless it was the cat rescue volunteering, that sounds like it could have been a New Year’s Resolution.

I thought I’d start eating better, and to that end, I bought the small frozen pizzas instead of the regular size ones, and almond milk instead of regular milk, because not drinking milk is going to make all the difference. No but seriously, I’m going to start eating more vegetables and potatoes don’t count. Also fruits, they’re really good for you and delicious, but not chocolate spread, because I have about 16 jars of it on my hips at this point. I guess I’ll have to stop buying chocolates by the bag because I cannot, cannot, cannot stop myself from stuffing half the bag into my fat face at once.

I don't even take the wrappers off first.

For my second resolution, I’ve decided to write a book. I’ve been saying I’m going to write a book (well, books plural, if I’m honest) since I was old enough to know what a book is, and yet I still haven’t written any yet. Well, except for my undergraduate thesis, but that one doesn’t count because it sucked.

There’s a reason I haven’t written any books yet, and it’s not that I’m lazy (honest). It’s just this one small problem I have with plots – namely, I can’t think of any. And before you say, “But wait, the undergraduate thesis!” that one didn’t have a plot. (I told you it sucked.) I even have multiple folders on my hard drive that were born in the highest hope of one day containing books, but do not, because alas, I could not think of any plots. I still don’t know what I’m going to do about that, but I’ve got all year to figure it out, so what’s the rush? I thought maybe telling literally the whole world would help, but if not, I guess I could try getting drunk.
 
It's worked for plenty of other authors, right?