Children of the resolution
A happy New Year to you all and commiserations as well because I’m sure that as you read this you are counting your broken resolutions.
I’m still battling the nicotine dragon I promised to vanquish years ago – he’s a much tougher old bugger than I ever imagined.
Yes, New Year also had me vowing to exercise more, to eat better, to drink less, to have more balance in my life, to be happier, to be more content. Sound familiar?
But unfortunately these resolutions are rarely resolute. Instead, I have found, they walk hand-in-hand with some nasty friends called “self-doubt”, “guilt” and “regret”.
But today I want to tell you that those resolutions don’t matter.
I’m going to tell you why you have to make them – but also why you have to break them.
Forget the self-improvement gurus and listen to me, your very own anti-guru, your fundi of failure.
First off, I think failing at our resolutions is good for us.
Imagine a world where we stuck to every New Year’s resolution?
If your vows are anything like mine and you had stuck to them, by now you would be a chiseled, bronzed Ironman with a doctorate in literature, a holiday retreat and contemplating retirement at 45.
But, alas, I am not.
Instead I am an increasingly weathered, prematurely greying and expanding worker bee feeling the pain with every interest rate hike and looking wistfully at the blue sky outside my office where I could be running or cycling instead of slaving at my desk.
Mine is the all too familiar story of the rotten resolution.
So how can an unkept resolution be a good thing?
Well, take heart my fellow flops, imagine how boring we would be if we were able by some miracle to complete our promised resolutions. We would have been perfect years ago – and that is simply not human.
I believe we make resolutions, not in the hope of keeping them, but knowing that we will break them. By doing so we remind ourselves that our lives are not yet over and we still have much to do in them.
All of us, the resolution rascals, are simply embracing our imperfect human condition and being true to a character, which we have to admit is horribly flawed.
We may die of cancer, heart failure, obesity or a plethora of other ailments, but we will never die of boredom!
We even keep some people entertained by our flaws – ask my dentist who cackled in horrified glee when he peered into my mouth earlier his week.
Secondly, you also must be aware that our world would simply drown under a flood of kept resolutions.
Gyms would go out of business and entire shopping malls would close as guilt spending sprees disintegrate under the rod of our iron will.
Clothing empires would fold because no one would need to have a wardrobe of at least four sizes to accommodate whatever stage of our life cycle we happened to be in. The health care business would go bust as would medical aids.
Fast food chains? Well the only thing quick about them would be the closing of their doors.
Our world would be one of happy, healthy smiling faces. It would be like living in a baptist convention. It would, in short, be a terrifying and unnatural place.
It is our duty to keep the global economy afloat and armies of workers employed by making. You must break your resolve.
If you haven’t fallen yet, it is not too late to do what is right and join us as we hold our chins high knowing that next year we will be brave enough to subject ourselves to this humiliation all over again.
