By Mark Harvey
Flying in the face of what many of us thought were impossible odds, we’ve actually almost made it to New Year’s Day, and I know what you’re thinking, but, don’t worry, because I have no intention of airing that in a family oriented newspaper. But the other thing you’re worrying about is your New Year’s resolution list, and I can certainly understand why. Perish forbid that we miss the opportunity to embrace yet another opportunity for personal failure.
Let’s face it: New Year resolutions are a tradition steeped in tradition, when we allow ourselves to be bullied by the calendar and intimidated into thinking that, just because the year is “new,” that we are now required to be “new,” too. So, we set about deciding to reinvent ourselves, which usually means doing less of something that we’ve been doing too much of with, with a few notable exceptions, that will remain unarticulated here.
For instance, food is always good grist for the Resolution Mill. We can, and often do, resolve to do less of it, or do it more responsibly, or both. An example might be: “I resolve to eliminate processed sugar from my diet and replace it with celery.”
This probably sounded eminently practical, if not inspirational, at about, oh, 2:30 this morning, but its luster may be fading as the day proceeds and, for some of the more profligate among us, aspirin ceases to be the primary nutritional supplement. So, once again, we are defeated by our own stellar lack of self-discipline, we drown our sorrows in Oreos and resolve to resolve more courageously in 2018.
The problem wasn’t that the idea was bad or that our motivation was off-track. The “problem” was that we bit off more than we could chew. A more realistic resolution might have been: “I resolve not to eat Oreos with both hands!”
So, let’s stay with the cultural norm of vowing to do less of something that is generally viewed as physically and medically deleterious, like eating, drinking, smoking or watching the evening news. While doing less of any of those will endear us to people who are near to us, food still seems the most likely target, so we tend to phrase everything in terms of what we’re not going to do, or what we’re going to do less of. Example: “I resolve to eat less.”
Less than what? Less than yesterday? Less than Thanksgiving Day? Less than the day that you won the “1984 Rattlesnake Stew Eating International” in Yuma? You’ve got to narrow it down. And since Nature abhors, or emphatically resents, a vacuum, what are you going to do more of to fill the void left by what you’re doing less of, namely, eating? Drink?… No, that’s wrong. … I know: EXERCISE! There we go! But, again, we have to be more specific: Exactly what will we do, and when?
“I resolve to keep the cupcakes at the neighbors’ house, so I’ll have to walk next door every time I want one.” Well, now you’re beginning to get the hang of it, although this particular resolution might require some refinement, based on some obvious questions:
1. Are your neighbors armed to the teeth with the 2nd amendment, thus handicapping your ability to fulfill your resolution at 4:00 in the morning?
2. Do your neighbors like cupcakes?
3. Are your neighbors likely to share your exuberance for the task, and retaliate by storing their Krispy Kreme donuts at your house?
But don’t be discouraged, because you’re thinking “correctly.” The idea is to capitalize on an opportunity to do “better” – Better than we’ve done, better than we’ve been, more than we’ve been, healthier than we’ve been – So we can have the life that we claim to want, the way we claim to want it.
And so that the people we claim to love won’t have to (a) take care of us, or (b) put us in the ground because we couldn’t triumph over a fistful of Oreos.
Sure we can.
Happy New Year!
Mark Harvey is the director of Information and Assistance for Olympic Area Agency on Aging. He can be reached at harvemb@dshs.wa.gov or 532-0520 in Aberdeen, (360) 942-2177 in Raymond or (360) 642-3634. FACEBOOK: Olympic Area Agency on Aging-Information &Assistance.
