New Year’s resolutions | sixtiestosixties

New Year’s Resolutions Redux

by sixtiestosixties

It is January 2018 and one of the last things I wrote on my “sixtiestosixties” blog was about New Years resolutions for 2014. I wish I had remembered that before I wrote another post for this New Year’s. I can’t say the discovery came as a big surprise since I can’t even remember what I wrote on my grocery list yesterday. But I was disappointed because not only had I written pretty much the same crap four years ago it was much funnier. This is clearly a case of use it or lose it. I am so out of practice. But I realize if I want to continue posting on this blog site I had better get going because “sixtiestosixties” won’t work forever. I’ll be 68 this year which means I’ve only got two years left under this banner and then I will have to come up with a whole new shtick. I am working on a come back.

I can’t believe I wrote about resolutions twice. I hate them. I make the same lame ones every year and then write about them which is a pretty good indication that not only do I not keep them I don’t even remember what they are. I know I am not alone in this. Why is it that any of us even bother? My theory is it’s fucking January and we all need some hope to make it to spring.

But this year I really did get excited when I saw a suggested resolution from the LA Times reprinted in the Denver Post that I could get behind. (Yes, people, a real newspaper written by real journalists. I am not talking about Facebook shit here.) So I am going to steal the idea and start with it. The resolution? Read more books. This is such a great idea that I am going to try to salvage what little I can from my “Resolutions 2018” draft and just go with it. Let’s consider this a soft reopening. I need the practice.

Resolutions for 2018:

#1 Read more books.

I really love to read but I haven’t been reading as much as I used to. I spend too much time going down the rabbit hole on the internet. My God, does it ever end? I also watch too much Netflix. But I hear so much better with my earbuds and there are no commercials and you don’t have to wait a week to find out what happens. So why wouldn’t I? I also drink wine (or whatever) at dinner time which really helps me get through the evening news that I find totally depressing but the wine also makes me sleepy and I don’t get many pages read before I am snoring away. Reading gives me much more pleasure than libations and certainly more than news so this is really a two-fer. Because in order to stay up to read I have to skip the wine at dinner (or the vodka or gin or bourbon or whatever). So drinking less just kind of tags along. Maybe then I’ll lose some weight around the middle and…oops!.. never mind. Failed that resolution before. Hopefully, reading will also gives me new ideas.

Pick one to go with the hat.

#2 Publish this blog post before January is over.

This is another reason why I am going ahead with this topic. I don’t have any other ideas at the moment. And, unbelievably to me, it’s been more than three years since I’ve posted. I have managed to move twice but haven’t written a single frickin blog post. What am I waiting for? My obituary? I sometimes get these crazy ideas and think to myself “that would make a great blog post”. Then I click on some stupid shit on the internet and my idea is lost is the midst of garbage. Published garbage that is out there while my garbage is not. So I am going to get organized and reinvent a page out of Marie Kondo’s book. I am going to hold my ideas close to me and if they make me happy I’ll write them down. Otherwise I’ll toss them out of my memory like I normally do with things like passwords and important birthdays. Hopefully this method will work better for me with ideas than with real stuff.

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What was that idea I had last week?

#3 Write More

If I keep number #2 then this one is already done. And if I publish just one additional post I will have doubled my output. This will make me so much happier than another dinner with wine in front of the TV hearing about this year’s flu epidemic.

So I have made three resolutions to make me happy. What about you?

Life today.

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New Years Resolutions

by sixtiestosixties

Here we go!

I’ve been thinking about making some New Year’s resolutions. Have you noticed that “resolutions” seem to have been rebranded everywhere as “intentions”? That sounds a bit wishy-washy to me. I don’t see an “intention” as necessarily having a measurable outcome. I see it as on the slippery slope to “I meant to”. Most of the things I intended to do in my life didn’t get done. I am totally OK with this new vocabulary though because if there is no call for results it allows me to just think about making changes without any real plan. It also pretty much eliminates the chance of failure.

To control or not control. That is the question.

The first intention I’ve been pondering is my tendency to procrastinate. My need to work on this one is made pretty clear by the fact it’s the middle of January as I start writing this. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not as important when you start something as when you finish it. It’s also important to keep in mind that some things we start really aren’t worth finishing. And some things we think we are finished with we haven’t even really begun.

My next intention is to be more positive and cheerful. (Except of course when blogging because then I wouldn’t know what to write about.) I tend to complain a lot. It doesn’t take much for me to get on a rant. I can whinge on the weather, the government, Comcast, bad drivers, slow service…just about anything I can’t control. Hmm…did I just write “control”? There’s a loaded word. Control. Or lack thereof. And coming to terms with having less and less of it both real and perceived as I age. Is this what makes me get grumpy? I intend to spend some time thinking about this. Maybe I’ll start when the weather gets better.

It wouldn’t be a new year with out some kind of health intention. I’m tired of the “lose ‘x’ number of pounds, make ‘x’ number of trips to the gym, eat ‘x’ number of vegetable a day”. I’ve made quantitative resolutions about those things time and time again changing the value of x yearly as needed. I’m going to keep it simple this year and risk irritating math purists. x=my pants fit. And since I’m making intentions and not resolutions leggings count.

Every year I tell myself that I “should” call certain people or I “should” visit certain old friends. Not this year. No more saying “should”anyway. Should is an obligation. It becomes a to do list. I want to do this for me. I don’t spend nearly enough time with the people I love the most in this life. What the hell have I been waiting for?

And then there are the people I hang on to that serve no purpose in my life except to bring me down in their own special way. We all have these people in our lives. (We are all probably these people in someone else’s life as well.) Why do I hang on? I intend to disinvite them from my life and make room at my table for better companions. I will have to think about this for awhile though because it’s not always clear who’s who.

I also intend to do more. But not more of the things you cross off a list. I want to dream more, dance more, sing more, love more. I want to hear more stories. I want more time with my friends, more time with my family. I want to fill my year with joy.

What are your plans this year?

Life today.