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Pick One You Can Keep

By Gloria Diaz

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Fort Wayne Reader

2007-01-10

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions anymore. I got enough stuff done last summer, I figure I don’t need to make any improvements this year.

I’m kidding, of course. It’s just that declaring a New Year’s resolution puts you on the spot. Probably the most popular resolution is to lose weight. Next thing you know, it’s May and you still have those 20 pounds you vowed to lose four months ago. If people ask, “how’s the weight loss going?” what the hell do you say? “Well, I haven’t lost weight, but my resolution to clean my ears more often seems to be working.” Trust me, they won’t be impressed.

I’ve been taking the “take things as they approach/as the mood hits me” route, and I’ve found that things I worry about doing eventually get done. During that windy night we had a few weeks ago, several large branches came down in my yard. There was one huge branch, and I wondered when I was going to get to it. I’d been worried about something else in my life, and I pretty much did nothing until I reached a decision. But we got that warm spell, and I was in the mood to go out into the yard and start sawing away. I was able to get most of the branch cut down, and I dragged the rest of it over to the woodpile. I’ll get to it later.

I’m an impatient person, but I do try to console myself that things do happen for a reason, and sometimes it’s better that we don’t get what we want all at once. I am, however, proud of the fact that I did do what I announced I would do this summer (just like a New Year’s resolution!) and fall, even if the school part turned out to be a disaster. I’m remedying that by trying again, this time at a different place. Bottom line: I intended to change my life and it hasn’t quite changed the way I predicted it would, but I think I’ll get there, in time.

My neighbor up the street however, is a different story. For the last couple years, right after New Year’s, she’s said, “this year is my year. I’m going to get this house in shape, I’m going to lose weight,” and so on. To be honest, accomplishing both tasks is going to be quite daunting, and she would be wise to pick one or the other, but not both at the same time. She has enough self-help books to stock a small-town library. She also has plenty of exercise equipment. Yet her life and her body stay the same, year after year. I’ve read a few of her books, and they were sort of interesting, but until you actually
move forward, all the self-help volumes in the world won’t help you unless you do SOMETHING. Often, doing SOMETHING can be the hardest thing of all. It requires deciding what you want, figuring out how best to get there, how much money you will need and how badly you want it. That last one is the killer. What are you willing to do to change your life? And when do you plan to take that first step?

This year, I took that step. I wound up making a mistake, but I’m trying to correct it. Fortunately, I have the ability to do that. Let’s hope this time it works out better than my original choice.

But I will say this: I’ve got plenty of Q-Tips, so I expect if nothing else, my ears will be pretty darn clean this year.