New Year's Resolutions

Everyone at lest considers making New Year’s resolutions, and some actually do – about 30%. Of those, only 10 % really keep them. In a town the size of Grand Forks, that amounts to about 17 people. Those 17 are easily identifiable. They are the high profile, Type A personalities that are constantly busy achieving things. That’s why they are able to keep their New Year’s resolutions while the rest of us fail miserably; they are used to reaching their goals. Formerly, they all had multi-paged, leather bound Day Planners; now they have little hand held computer/phone devices that they constantly type their schedules into. That’s another thing the lucky 17 have in common: schedules that they actually adhere to, broken down into fifteen minute parcels of time. The rest of us are somewhat vague about time. We usually have four parcels: morning, afternoon, evening and night. Some only have two: day and night, or awake and asleep.
I count myself among the 30% that make but rarely keep their New Year’s resolutions. It isn’t that I don’t have good intentions, but after all these years I am realistic. I have tried to trick myself into keeping the resolutions by offering myself rewards: a new table saw for losing 20 pounds, a big flat screen TV for going regularly to yoga class, etc. For some reason, however, I end up double-tricking (sort of like double-daring) myself into collecting the rewards without actually keeping the resolution. (I lost five pounds so I will get the table saw and lose the other fifteen before the VISA bill has to be paid, or yesterday I signed up for the yoga class and therefore will immediately buy the big screen TV which will allow me to practice in the comfort of my living room)
I am not really fooling myself, of course, and as a result I have lately altered my approach. This year as last year I am making my resolutions in three categories: Sure To Keep, Likely To Keep, and Are You Kidding? Last year the third category was more optimistically labeled: Might Possibly Keep. Of the four resolutions in that category, I almost came close to keeping one. I never really had a chance at the other three (Learn to SCUBA dive, write a novel and bench press my body weight). I blame that in part on my brother’s failed retirement plans. He was going to move to a property on the beach in Costa Rica – he had pictures – and was going to allow me to live there in a cozy cabana for three months. The real estate promoter absconded with his down payment, however – no pictures of him – and in disappointment my brother and I started eating pastry. My body weight soared to the point that Hulk Hogan in his prime couldn’t have bench pressed it. The last Might Possibly Keep resolution was to bungy jump. I was all set to go to Nanaimo and jump off the famous bungy jumping bridge there when my father reminded me of the family history of detached retinas. Suddenly the thought of deceleraing upside down at the end of a giant elastic lost whatever slight appeal it had in the first place and I gave up on keeping that resolution as well.
My lack of success has caused me this year to place only one preposterous resolution in the third category: I resolve to eat no red meat. I can tell you right now that at the first whiff of any roasting/broiling/grilling beef I will abandon that resolution faster than the Conservatives ditched Reform, but that is okay, because I have some very achievable resolutions in my other two categories. In the Likely To Keep category I have 1) will compose a haiku, 2) will learn Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star on the harmonica, and 3) will stride manfully to the mailbox at least once a month. Just in case those prove too difficult I have included a couple of sure-fire resolutions in the Sure To Keep category: 1) will avoid using Brylcreem on my hair, 2) will not greet any woman over fifty by calling out “Yo, Momma,” and 3) will gratefully accept a seat on a bus from a teenager, if one is ever offered, if I ever take a bus.
I have a good feeling about keeping my resolutions this year. At least a couple of them.