It’s the New Year and like many others I am faced with the traditional question “what is your New Year’s resolution?” Every year this question taunts me into the status quo. I find myself struggling with what resolution to set and what I will have to do to keep it. I’m a goal junkie but when it comes to New Year resolutions something just doesn’t sit right with me. I think it’s because it’s so cliché. One time a year people are encouraged to set goals? Are you kidding me? What do you do the rest of the year? Ninety-two percent of those that set them never achieve them and a whopping forty-five percent fail before the end of January? That doesn’t sound like a successful New Year. It sounds like a tradition that has already failed me. So this year, I resolved not to resolve anything. In fact, to protest the impending failure of a resolution, I am hanging a large orange triangle with big black letters around my neck, “UNDER CONSTRUCTION”. That’s right I’m under construction, a constant work in progress.
Maybe it is because I am knocking on the door of “middle age” that I have had this epiphany, but, I’ve come to realize that I can find a whole lot of happiness with just a little bit of self acceptance. Some things are easier to accept than others like the fact that I am 5’4’ and I’m never going to get any taller. Sure, I can spend thousands on cute high heeled shoes or I can just accept the world as I see it (which just so happens to be right below your chin).
Ok you got me that was an easy one to accept. It was a bit harder to come to terms with the number on the scale and the height and weight chart that assures me that my height and that scale number is not a good match. I have learned that resolving to do some big makeover weight loss production with lofty goals of super models dancing in my head was not only asking for failure it was completely unrealistic. I could go insane at the gym four hours a day seven days a week feasting on protein shakes and carrot sticks or I could be content with a moderate schedule of one hour four days a week and keeping myself a comfortable healthy weight by choosing fruit over French fries.
The same is true in other areas of my life. One year I resolved to keep our house clean. I was going to reach this goal by setting daily chores and doing a full family-style cooperative cleaning mission every weekend. This turned into a stressful time of me lining my family up like little soldiers and barking orders for all of Saturday. Fail. Instead, I accepted the fact that a little bit of “out to dinner” funds towards a house cleaner could give me a clean house, time to go to the commissary to buy the food for a home cooked meal, and a happy family to enjoy it.
I remember the year that I resolved to build stronger friendships. Each week I tasked myself with goals of thank you notes, “how are you doing?” emails, and building a Facebook database of every connection known to man. The result was friends who thought I might be dying and a Facebook profile page full of people I didn’t even like in high school.
Then there was the year I chose my resolution to be a better listener. This is always something I work towards as a personal goal and that year I had had one too many people make the comment that I talked too much. Taking those comments to heart, I spent the first few weeks of January practicing to shut my mouth and open my ears. I ended up with a bunch of concerned faces and questions about whether or not I was “okay” because “you’re so quiet”. I really don’t know what I was thinking. I am a talk radio show host, of course I talk too much. It’s my job.
The irony of life is that the grass will always be greener on the other side. No matter where you are or who you are, there will always be something you want to fix. I think the Serenity Prayer says it best:
Grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.
Join me in my protest, don’t resolve to fail. Make 2012 the year you are “UNDER CONSTRUCTION”. The year you take constant manageable and sustainable strides towards being the best person you think you can be and amazing strides in accepting the person you are already.
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