The nice thing about having two New Years to celebrate is that you get to make two sets of personal New Year "resolutions." Of course, the downside can also be that that is two sets of resolutions that you may not actually fulfill.
I decided to make my personal resolutions list a bit smaller this year in the hopes that I'll actually accomplish everything on the list. One thing I did promise myself and, bli neder, I'm going to push to get it done. I resolved to go through my address book and contact some of those "long lost" friends and relatives with whom I have lost regular contact. I'm not necessarily trying to get back to a talk-to-them-every-day kind of relationship but yes, we once had that kind of relationship and I'd really like to know that all is well with them. I'd like to be able to say mazel tov for all the good things, like children and grandchildren and yes, even great grandchildren. Our relationship may have changed, for a whole slew of reasons, but that doesn't mean that at least a once a year contact shouldn't be there. Hopefully this is one resolution that won't get broken.
About some of the others I'm not so sure. I tried the "add 10,000 steps a day" resolution a while back and it faded into oblivion. I'm going to be more realistic and try for increments of 2000-2500 steps (equals one mile). Here's hoping that the temperature and the weather will cooperate, as well as home, work, health and life in general. And yes, I noticed that I just gave myself some outs if I don't reach my goal. 'Tis the nature of New Year's Resolutions. Hmmm, do I get to count going up and down the steps as actually being double steps, particularly if I'm carrying two baskets of laundry? Maybe that should be triple steps. Can I double the steps if I'm carrying a pot of soup to the sukkah?
What is it about human beings and resolutions? Why is it so much easier to make the resolutions than to keep them? Why do we insist on making resolutions that we know, somewhere inside of us, we aren't going to be able to keep or carry out fully? So many of the resolutions are "piecrust promises"--easily made, easily broken. Others of the resolutions are complex, requiring a great deal of thought and action. We start out okay and then get bogged down. We have such good intentions--but you know what they say about good intentions and the road to hell.
2 comments:
Here's a way to make it much easier to keep your resolutions: have fun at them.
Instead of forcing yourself to step, try this next step. Setup a time to walk with friends (if they're long lost friends it's like a double word score because of your other resolution)
Think. Do. Enjoy.
It helped me to stop calling them resolutions. Instead I call them suggestions. Suggestions are optional things, nice if they happen but not a reason to beat yourself up if they don't.
Think Summy may be on to something. Seems like all my resolutions are really serious. Why don't we ever seem to have a resolution to have fun or enjoyment?
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