Resolved: No New Year’s Resolutions

I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions, mostly because failing is a terrible way to start a new year.

If you’re going to make a major life change, it’s usually best to do it gradually. A New Year’s Resolution is like someone who never exercised deciding to run a marathon–tomorrow. Get healthy? Absolutely. Go cold turkey on cigarettes and snack food on January 2nd? Well, that’s why violent incidents go up on January 3rd.

Having said that, for some people stopping all at once is the only way to accomplish something, and I’m all for accomplishing something. That being the case, if you want to make a resolution and be serious about it, more power to you. Just remember, the proper response to nicotine withdrawal is not second degree murder. Not even third degree.

Well, maybe third.

For me, the best time of the year to make life changes is spring. Why? Because in spring, I care about life. In January, all I care about is turning the oven on low, wrapping myself in a blanket, and climbing inside. It’s the only place I can get warm. I really don’t care what’s happening elsewhere, and I wouldn’t go out at all if I didn’t need to make money to pay the gas bill. If I did make a New Year’s Resolution, it would be to fill up the Ford’s fuel tank and just Escape south until I drive into salt water.

Okay, I’ve got the dog, the wife, and my best Bermuda shorts: Gulf of Mexico, here we come!

But spring … I could do spring. Things are looking up. Green stuff starts appearing. There’s sun, except during basketball playoffs, when for some reason there’s always ice.

What’s up with that? Why is Hoosier Hysteria always accompanied by “Midwest ice storm–film at eleven”?

Sure, sometimes I go out into an April sleet storm, but generally things are looking up. Sometimes the snowpile at the end of the Wal-Mart parking lot even melts away by Independence Day. I’ll walk out the door on March 21st and say, “Now I want to lose weight and give up Mountain Dew! I’ll start tomorrow.”

I gave up drinking after my 21st birthday party, which they tell me was a blast. I never did smoke; but with my addictive personality, if I started they’d have to bury me with both hands clutching a pack of … I don’t know, what brands of cigarettes are they still selling these days? I can’t imagine walking a mile for a Camel.

Maybe that’s the thing about the New Year: I never got addicted to making resolutions. But hey–there’s time for me yet.

“What’s this crap?”

Happy New Year!