Resolution Week '21!

(It's something I just made up. Humor me.)

I have always been a little disdainful of new year resolutions (just as I am disdainful of any sentence that includes the phrase, “this year will be different”). Considering a new year is strictly a turn of a calendar page, I find it hard to get excited about a New Me in a New Year, mainly because I know me and a seismic shift in any direction is, at this point, pretty much a pipe dream.

But: As we slide head-long into 2022, I want to take a moment to review the sort-of-resolutions I made in 2021, fearlessly grade myself on same, and resolve to aim lower in 2022. Join me?

My 2021 sort-of-resolutions included (but weren’t limited to):

• Finish that novel I’ve been dragging around like a tail (by summer’s end).

  • I have written 300 pages and am now forcing myself to go back and re-edit the thing. It’s slow going. I need to set another deadline to blow through.

• Lose 10 pounds.

  • Honestly, I’m not unhappy with my weight, which hovers in the 145-150 range. This pretend-goal is more something I take out as a cudgel with which to smack myself when things are going well. It’s not like I’ve changed my diet or anything and at this point, it’s not like I’m going to, either.

• Exercise every day.

  • Mostly done, though sometimes that “exercise” included a leisurely walk around my neighborhood, broken up by stops to chat for long minutes with my neighbors. For someone who used to be an athlete, this is quite the comedown but hey! I’m upright, taking solids, and I can still tie my own shoes.

• Read my Bible every day.

  • Done, save for these last few days of December, when my daily Bible app sends me into Revelation, a book I don’t get and don’t like so I’m not gonna. Sorry, Jesus.

• Do one kind thing every day without bragging about it because bragging makes it moot).

  • Ha. Fell way short on this, so sometimes I doubled up or broadened my definition of “kind thing.” Say it with me: Once a fundamentalist, always a fundamentalist. I am trained to broaden definitions so that I can stay within the (what turns out to be fungible) letter of the law.

• Just once, have my Weekly Screen Time be less than the week before.

  • I can honestly see this one sliding off the list for ‘22. To hell with it.

• Start and maintain a Substack.

  • Done and done. This wasn’t a hard one, mostly because I love coming back and seeing what people said. You are witty and fun and this year would have been meh-with-a-vengeance, if such a thing exists, without you.