Do you make New Year’s Resolutions? I don’t. I never have. I have always seen making them as this thing that other people do, like buying lottery tickets or having sex on airplanes. I don’t do it. I think it must be great fun considering all the hype, but I’ve never felt the particular need to do so myself. Besides, I can think of good reasons not to buy a lottery ticket (I also don’t burn money or throw it in the trash), and who wants to try that hard for an orgasm with the airplane sink faucet up their ass? Those bathrooms are seriously cramped. Count me out.
When I was 24 I had the realization that I had tried my first cigarette at 12, and technically, I’d been smoking for half my life. Whoa.
For half of my life, I’d been working on an addiction that held no positives for me or anyone around me, and something about that made me realize what a hold those damn things had on me. It was the disgusting and shocking realization I needed to be completely ready to give up the dangerous habit for good. I was successful. I have never looked back, and my only regret is that I ever picked up that first cigarette.
I had attempted quitting two previous times. I can’t remember specifically why I embarked on the effort the times that I failed. When I try, I draw up vague ghosts of reasons like, “smoking is bad, m’kay” “smokers smell even worse than patchoulied up hippies, man,” and “that shit is expensive, yo!”
None of those reasons was the right one for me. Yes, of course, not killing myself and polluting the environment SHOULD have been good enough reasons, I know. Chalk that up to Me = Assholeface. For whatever reason, I didn’t have true resolve. I wasn’t ready then. When I was, however, I was passionate and serious. Something inside of me would not let me fail.
I think this encapsulates the reasons why I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions. It feels like a faddy waste of time – if I’m ready to make an important change in my life before the New Year, I see no reason to wait. If I’m not ready at the New Year, I see no reason to force a change that is so much more likely to end in failure.
Will you be ready to stop smoking/lose weight/quit being a nagging bitch of a wife in 2010?
If so, will you be ready because it’s the right time, the reason is pressing, and you feel passionate about it? Or will it just be because the page on you calendar flipped over and you feel trapped by tradition? If you fail, will you get back on the horse, so to speak, and kick that thing’s ass? Or will you give up because “it’s just a NY resolution” ?
All of that being said, I feel the need to make the point (lest you hurl rotten tomatoes and used tampons at me) that I DO think it’s AWESOME to make healthy and positive changes in your life, no matter what time of year it is. If The New Year is your time, go for it. If you like to make a New Year’s Resolution, I do hope you’re successful. And if you’re not, there’s always 2011, right? *wink*
As for me? I resolve to stay up too late and drink too much on New Year’s Eve. That’s about as far as I can go. Baby steps. I think I’ll wait until at least when pigs fly out of my anus 2020 to even think about hitting that ‘nagging bitch of a wife’ one. I can’t imagine being anywhere near ready for that ever anytime soon.
Today’s post is my answer to The Resolution, a writing challenge at {W}rite-of-Passage.
The following people took the challenge, too.
#1 by David Griner on December 28, 2009 - 11:27 AM
My wife and I keep a small notebook with New Year’s Resolutions and store it with our Christmas decorations so that we’ll remember to pull it out once a year.
To be honest, we usually forget most of the resolutions, but we’ve still usually accomplished most of them. I think it just kinda serves as a record of what was important to you that year. It’s fascinating to look back through the 10 years we’ve been together and see how our priorities and goals evolved each year.
This year, for example, I finally got to cross “Eat Pizza With Lotus Carroll” off the list. It was a big 2009 indeed.
#2 by Bejewell on December 28, 2009 - 12:01 PM
I smoked for years and years and years, tried to quit several times, unsuccessfully, until a friend said to me, “The key to quitting is that you have to want something else MORE.”
When I got pregnant, I did. Quit cold turkey, and I’ve never looked back.
No resolutions for me, except my resolution to NOT make any empty promises to myself.
Happy 2010!!
#3 by NessWorld Magazine on December 28, 2009 - 12:33 PM
I’m the same as bejewell, positive pregnancy test = DONE. Never ever wanted another cigarette ever. Not even after a brilliant restaurant meal, glass of wine, awesome coffee (all the times you’d usually have one). Didn’t *EVA* want one again. Go me.
As for the whole New Year thing, I am pathologically opposed to ‘having to go out/drink too much/do a stupid countdown and then go all WHOO HOO’. I just WON’T! To me the best way to ring in the new year involves comfy pj’s and probably lots of sleep.
Lastly the resolution thing, I tend to focus on them at this time of year, because I traditionally buy myself a snazzy new diary and try to keep my life organised by using it. So not really a resolution as such, as a resolve to be more organised I suppose.
NessWorld Magazine´s last blog ..Movie Review: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Starring Harrison Ford and Cate Blanchett
#4 by Kat on December 28, 2009 - 12:35 PM
I resolve to go to bed curled up with my kid by 10pm on New Year’s eve, and not to drink at all… I’ve had enough staying up late, drinking and pigging out to last me the next few months at least.
I’m with you on resolutions. I have some things I want to accomplish in the next year-ish, and I’ll stick with that.
#5 by Stephanie on December 28, 2009 - 1:21 PM
I always set New Years Day aside for myself. I take the day off, send my husband and son to the park/museum/anywhere but home, and try to reflect on the past year and the coming year. Of course it’s an arbitrary date, and I rarely make any actual resolutions, but it feels important to me to make the time once a year to consider in what direction my life is heading, and whether it the direction I want to be going.
#6 by Lilacspecs on December 28, 2009 - 1:32 PM
“The key to quitting is that you have to want something else MORE.”
So true. I smoked for ten years and quit when I started dating my fiance. He lived in another country at the time but I still wanted to be smoke free for him. That was the only thing that got me to quit. With the help of Chantix.
Lilacspecs´s last blog ..Photos From Our Weekend in Durbuy
#7 by Brigid on December 28, 2009 - 2:16 PM
I am a sucker for new year’s resolutions. Total sucker. But, I have flossed my teeth every morning for two years. And that feels pretty good.
Brigid´s last blog ..three
#8 by DesignHER Momma on December 28, 2009 - 9:31 PM
CHEERS! I have resolutions – although I need to loose weight, read more actual books, save money, give it up to my husband more often…ect, ect, ect….
DesignHER Momma´s last blog ..Stuff that Spartan in the Stocking
#9 by Scylla on December 29, 2009 - 11:44 PM
I agree with you. I have never been particularly successful sticking to a resolution thought of quickly during the process of intoxication. (Usually I don’t think of resolutions until during the party when random people ask me what I resolve this year.)
Mostly I battle with my resolutions all year round. Stay a non-smoker, yell less at the kids, eat fewer bad things, put the guards back on my attitude when dealing with my husband, be a better friend/mom/wife/child, succeed in my practice, save the world.
Why resolve only once a year? Why set a day at all?
By the way, it has been forever since I have stopped by here and I have to say the site is awesome! Congrats!
#10 by Matt @ The Church of No People on December 30, 2009 - 12:01 AM
I’m with you. I think it’s totally awesome if you want to make healthy changes in *your* life. Key word: “your” life. My life is a whole other issue, and I’m quite comfortable with my unhealthy choices thank you.
Great post, glad I found your blog!
#11 by Amanda on December 30, 2009 - 12:53 AM
I make jokes about new year’s resolutions, but haven’t really ever stuck with any, honestly. January 1st is always a reminder that I’ve lost yet another year of my life – just like my birthday. The year is so much nicer when it’s ahead of you, not gone. When people you’ve lost are still here. I’m only really good at one thing, and that’s wasting precious time, and my worst offense? Too much time thinking about what I should be doing instead of actually doing anything.
Most people begin the new year hung over, so I figure if I’m out resolving to make my world a better place, then I’m doing better than most, even if it’s just for a day. Then I’m back to sitting on my ass watching Grey’s Anatomy.
#12 by dysfunctional mom on December 30, 2009 - 5:43 AM
Wha??? I have to stop being a nagging bitch of a wife in 2010? I don’t see that happening.
#13 by talina on January 1, 2010 - 11:17 PM
No resolutions here either! If something bugs me enough to warrant a change I get off my ass and make the change right then and there. I don’t wait for new years and I don’t force resolutions if I am not inclined to change. I am stubborn like that.
talina´s last blog ..Happy first day of 2010!
#14 by patois on January 5, 2010 - 1:16 PM
I think I believed in making resolutions at New Year’s when I was much younger. Now? Nah.
patois´s last blog ..° By °