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Every year I'm tempted to greet the New Year with a petunia-like "Oh no, not again". And yet, every year I make a new set of resolutions. Why?
Okay, I've got an axiom (or two) to grind. First, I believe that my life is more satisfying and fulfilling if I take control of it. I don't mean I have to control everything. But I'd rather be swimming in some direction or other (my internal jury is still out on whether there are any objectively "good" or "bad" directions) than just floating down the stream like a bit of driftwood. Or, if I drift, I'd rather it was because I'd decided to drift than because my arms and legs were tied to my sides (or, worse, because I had convinced myself that they were tied). Second, I believe that sometimes getting up and walking around is necessary to stop your legs going to sleep, even if you have nowhere in particular to go; and that you're more likely to find an interesting direction to go in if you wander around than if you stand still and stare at your shoes.
I mean, by all means feel free to stand still and stare at your shoes. Or my shoes, if you prefer. They're very nice shoes, actually, if I say so myself. So nice, in fact, that I'm quite prepared to believe that it's possible to be comforted, pleased, amused, inspired, or enlightened by them; perhaps they are shoes which can change somebody's life. But I still think if you wander around a bit, even just around your room, you'd be more likely to see a nice pair of shoes, if shoes are what float your boat.
Given those things, I find that setting myself goals and making resolutions is a bit like saying "I'll just walk to that lamppost there". The lamppost isn't very interesting (at least, I can't see any fauns nearby). But it's a destination, and I haven't been there yet, and who knows what I'll find on the journey? I might find that my feet hurt, and walking doesn't suit me, and decide to cycle instead, or fly, or bounce all the way there on a space-hopper; I might decide halfway there that I don't give a damn about the old lamppost, and I'm going to sit down in the nice spot I've got to and have a picnic; I might decide to run there just for the fun of it; I might run right on past it and chase the butterfly I noticed on the way instead. I might find that even just thinking about the lamppost makes me cross, and decide to go with my gut feeling, turn round and go back the other way.
Or I might arrive at the lamppost to find that I've already scratched my name into it, leading me to believe that I must have been there before, though I didn't remember it, not even in a dream.
But even given all that, why New Year? It's just an arbitrary point in an arbitrarily-constructed system of marking time, which is arbitrarily assigned importance by the people who arbitrarily chose to follow it. (Did we mention it was arbitrary?) No, it's no different from every other day, any more than Mondays are different from Fridays, or your birthday is different from your 364-or-thereabouts unbirthdays. And some people choose not to mark birthdays, or anniversaries, or festivals. Some people don't have to take any notice of weekdays and weekends. That's all well and good. And yes, I could just as easily make those resolutions any other day.
Tomorrow, for instance.
And there's the rub. Tomorrow turns into the next day turns into the next month turns into hang on a minute it's New Year again and I never did get round to doing that thing. Perhaps I should resolve to pick another day as the point for kickstarting my motivation, or pick a day at random each year, just to prove that I can. Maybe one year I'll pick that as a random lamppost of a destination. But I don't believe it's actively harmful to use the New Year as a day on which to think about where I am and where I'm going, and so far it seems to have worked...
... at least, in part.
And now for the boring dissection of last year's resolutions ...
( still, pretty good year )
... and this year's resolutions, which are just as dull as last year's. I'm not expecting anybody else to read them; I'm only really writing them down so that I know what I planned, and so I can see whether I kept to it or not.
( looking ahead )
The executive summary, for those of you who didn't read all that (and the essence of the micromanaged manifesto, for those who did) is:
Make fuller and wiser use of the resources I already have.
Hope you're all making good use of 2006 so far.
Okay, I've got an axiom (or two) to grind. First, I believe that my life is more satisfying and fulfilling if I take control of it. I don't mean I have to control everything. But I'd rather be swimming in some direction or other (my internal jury is still out on whether there are any objectively "good" or "bad" directions) than just floating down the stream like a bit of driftwood. Or, if I drift, I'd rather it was because I'd decided to drift than because my arms and legs were tied to my sides (or, worse, because I had convinced myself that they were tied). Second, I believe that sometimes getting up and walking around is necessary to stop your legs going to sleep, even if you have nowhere in particular to go; and that you're more likely to find an interesting direction to go in if you wander around than if you stand still and stare at your shoes.
I mean, by all means feel free to stand still and stare at your shoes. Or my shoes, if you prefer. They're very nice shoes, actually, if I say so myself. So nice, in fact, that I'm quite prepared to believe that it's possible to be comforted, pleased, amused, inspired, or enlightened by them; perhaps they are shoes which can change somebody's life. But I still think if you wander around a bit, even just around your room, you'd be more likely to see a nice pair of shoes, if shoes are what float your boat.
Given those things, I find that setting myself goals and making resolutions is a bit like saying "I'll just walk to that lamppost there". The lamppost isn't very interesting (at least, I can't see any fauns nearby). But it's a destination, and I haven't been there yet, and who knows what I'll find on the journey? I might find that my feet hurt, and walking doesn't suit me, and decide to cycle instead, or fly, or bounce all the way there on a space-hopper; I might decide halfway there that I don't give a damn about the old lamppost, and I'm going to sit down in the nice spot I've got to and have a picnic; I might decide to run there just for the fun of it; I might run right on past it and chase the butterfly I noticed on the way instead. I might find that even just thinking about the lamppost makes me cross, and decide to go with my gut feeling, turn round and go back the other way.
Or I might arrive at the lamppost to find that I've already scratched my name into it, leading me to believe that I must have been there before, though I didn't remember it, not even in a dream.
But even given all that, why New Year? It's just an arbitrary point in an arbitrarily-constructed system of marking time, which is arbitrarily assigned importance by the people who arbitrarily chose to follow it. (Did we mention it was arbitrary?) No, it's no different from every other day, any more than Mondays are different from Fridays, or your birthday is different from your 364-or-thereabouts unbirthdays. And some people choose not to mark birthdays, or anniversaries, or festivals. Some people don't have to take any notice of weekdays and weekends. That's all well and good. And yes, I could just as easily make those resolutions any other day.
Tomorrow, for instance.
And there's the rub. Tomorrow turns into the next day turns into the next month turns into hang on a minute it's New Year again and I never did get round to doing that thing. Perhaps I should resolve to pick another day as the point for kickstarting my motivation, or pick a day at random each year, just to prove that I can. Maybe one year I'll pick that as a random lamppost of a destination. But I don't believe it's actively harmful to use the New Year as a day on which to think about where I am and where I'm going, and so far it seems to have worked...
... at least, in part.
And now for the boring dissection of last year's resolutions ...
( still, pretty good year )
... and this year's resolutions, which are just as dull as last year's. I'm not expecting anybody else to read them; I'm only really writing them down so that I know what I planned, and so I can see whether I kept to it or not.
( looking ahead )
The executive summary, for those of you who didn't read all that (and the essence of the micromanaged manifesto, for those who did) is:
Make fuller and wiser use of the resources I already have.
Hope you're all making good use of 2006 so far.
