New Year’s Resolutions – how I love to hate them. In theory, they’re sort of a nice idea: start the new year with some positive changes in your life; but in practice, they’re just another feel-good device with little substance. It’s a way of chunking up time into a neat little bundle, so you can play with it like a rag doll, instead of living inside of it. It’s like when people decide to start a new diet or quit smoking “tomorrow” or “next week” – why put a change like that into a future timeframe if not to allow for its easy and indefinite postponement?
I’m sure some people manage to make a nice list of resolutions and actually keep them all, but I think the vast majority keep few if any of their resolutions. Making new year’s resolutions (with a whole year to enact, or more likely forget) is like being an armchair activist; it enables you to feel like you’re doing good without actually having to do much. A more useful system might be to make a single small “new week” resolution every week and be sure to keep it (start right when you come up with it, if possible), such as ‘smile at one stranger’ or ‘don’t buy something.’
Now is much better than later. Happy 2008.
