Belated happy New Year RPI! The tradition of making New Year’s resolutions dates back to the early Babylonians. The Babylonian New Year celebrations lasted for 11 days, with each day having its own mode of celebration. It is said that the most popular resolution was to return borrowed farm equipment.
Those intervening millenia have led to some minor changes, such as a reduction of ten and a half days of partying along with a change in how we view borrowed items: Finders keepers. In addition, the usa.gov website has a list of popular resolutions which include “lose weight, pay off debt, save money, get a better job, get fit, eat right, get a better education, drink less alcohol, quit smoking now, reduce stress overall, take a trip, and volunteer.” A quick look at statistics of our overweight, debt-ridden, depressed, and inebriated brethren will show that Americans are about as serious about fulfilling these goals as the United States government is about wasting our money on pointless websites.
Perhaps it isn’t our fault. We make goals to get in shape at the time of the year we should be staying inside under warm blankets while snow coats Troy. But real reason for missed goals isn’t the weather. It’s the how-to guides. ehow.com offers advice on “keeping New Year’s goals” for anyone brave enough to type that term into Google search. What they don’t know is that the advice is just plain wrong. Allow me to explain the proper, if hypocritical, way to accomplish all of your New Year’s resolutions.
Bob Strauss, online resolution keeping “authority,” says that the first step is aiming low. He says that overzealous declarations are doomed. Apparently Bob has never been to middle school or he would have surely seen the banner in schools across the country with the saying, “Reach for the moon; even if you miss you’ll land among the stars.” If you set a goal of running 200 miles by the end of the month and only end up running 120, then congratulations lad, you are among the stars. On the contrary, if your goal is to lose three pounds, and you spend all of January traveling the competitive cheesecake eating circuit, then you, sir or madam, have failed harder than Britney Spears at parenting.
The article says to have only one New Year’s resolution. If you wanted to quit smoking and drinking, then too bad, because Bob doesn’t believe you can do it. The last step is to tell everyone about your New Year’s resolution. This one is the worst idea. It gives your confidants a way of making fun of your goal to become the world’s foremost authority on painting caricatures of cats, which is not my resolution by the way. Come on, cats, stop mocking me …
I urge you to follow through on your resolution. January 16th isn’t too late to get started on a better you.
