New Year’s Absolution

02Jan08

As I watch the Bayberry candle burn down into an olive puddle filling the candlestick to its rim, the remnants of last night’s champagne in hand, I realize that it’s that time of year again.  The time where, amidst nursing our hangovers, we collect our aspirations, failures, and inadequacies and blend them into a list of resolutions.  (Although, for most of us, “desperation” might be more fitting than “resolution”).  In the coming week(s), the line at Burger King will be a little bit shorter while a line begins to form for treadmills at the local gym.  Supermarkets will have an abundant stock of cigarettes, while the organic food aisle will be stripped bare.  You might even notice that rush hour is about fifteen minutes earlier as the collective, with smiles on their faces and an overall tone of hope, eagerly rushes to work – a model of focus and efficiency.

Spare me.

Don’t get me wrong.  The idea of a new start is as appealing to me as anyone.  The first of each month has been “the first day of the rest of my life” for the last two years as I have been so confident that each time the calendar reads the 1^st, that this would be the month when I finally get organized, take my fitness to the next level, seriously focus on playing guitar, and start writing that book that will send me to the top of the New York Times bestseller list.  The thought of falling back into the same old routine was laughable, yet here I am, constantly looking for my checkbook, it still takes me nine minutes to run a mile, I find myself playing the same repertoire as two years ago, and my twenty-five pages of jumbled thoughts reads more like a speech by a high school valedictorian than the earth-shattering manuscript that I desire it to be.

And I know that I’m not alone.  A couple of years ago, British psychologists determined that January 24^th is the most depressing day of the year.  Apparently, this day marks the time when, coupled with dreary January weather and the influx of credit card bills, even the strong-willed that have surpassed the average seven-day threshold, fall victim to their temptations and the draw of the familiar, and break the resolutions that they had so carefully crafted twenty-four days earlier.

So, this year I’ll be taking a different approach.  Instead of setting New Year’s Resolutions, this year I’m giving myself New Year’s Absolution.

A couple of years ago, while I was killing myself to obtain my fifth promotion in as many years, a friend and co-worker of mine remarked that society has instilled in the population a need for constant improvement and, while this is often a desirable characteristic, many have lost the ability to be satisfied with their current state in life.  Basically raising the question:  What is the point of improving yourself if, as soon as you do, you immediately feel dissatisfied causing the pursuit of your next improvement rather than enjoying what you’ve already accomplished?  This, in turn, made me wonder whether the pursuit of goals that I set for myself is in the true interest of my own happiness, or if I am instead trying to find happiness in the pursuit itself.   

Now don’t get me wrong.  This is not an attempt to give myself a free pass to drift through 2008 aimlessly.  Rather, I have decided to avoid the lure of setting a plurality of steadfast and lofty resolutions for perfection, all commencing on one day with no course of action to deal with the unexpected, and substituted them for a plan of a gradual transition to fulfill realistic goals that are sincerely important to me.  In short, absolving myself from the need for improvement and choosing the desire for contentment.  This, in turn, allows me to once again start January 2^nd feeling realistically optimistic that I will be able to separate external influences and pressures from those accomplishments that are truly the key to my fulfillment -resulting in a satisfying year.  Therefore, even if 2009 doesn’t find me on a book tour or at my album release party, I’m confident that I’ll be able to play a couple of new songs on the guitar, I’ll most likely be able to run a mile in six minutes, and I’ll definitely be able to find my checkbook.

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