Look far enough into any life and you’ll find room for improvement, but in most cases it only takes half a glance – my own life not being an exception. As I mature, my ways get set and all too often it easier to adapt to the accustomed inadequacy than it is to change it.
As I sat brainstorming the list of possible New Year’s resolutions, noting all the bad habits and unhealthy lifestyle choices, I tried to imagine what might be needed to create a remedy for each. It’s amazing how a list of personal improvement is so similar to a list of personal failing.
Some treatments obviously demand more commitment than others and I don’t have the time and energy to tackle them all at once. Trying to fix everything at the same time would probably just leave your good will burned out by the end of January.
Life is complicated enough – why make a burdening lifestyle choice in another direction? Oh right, I almost forgot, it’s the only way things eventually get better. That’s just how it works; productive change requires a great initial effort, but once better choices become habit, the overall quality of life should improve. A founding guideline to any New Year’s resolution usually begins with sacrifice and ends with a worthwhile goal.
A common example is fitness. You’ve got to get your fat rump into the gym before you start to see a pay off and constant reward usually requires constant effort. But being in good shape and staying that way is a lot easier than trying to jump-start those love handles into six packs.
The worst kind of burn is those first long miles on the treadmill, but in the end when you’re flexing those abs for the Myspace photo, you’ll know it was worth the effort. You’ll forget about all those torturous hours of slobbering sweat, body aching and embarrassment. You might even ask yourself “Why didn’t I do this years ago?” After a while you actually get addicted to the routine and eventually a day won’t even feel right unless it involves a healthy physical exertion.
That’s what I’m going to keep telling myself, anyway.
The second resolution on my list is definitely my favorite. As I awoke to my screeching banshee alarm clock at 5:45 a.m. this morning, it became all too clear that the midnight bedtime which has been a staple of my routine since my parents stopped bedding me down when I was ten years old needed a revision. Not that I always go to bed so late, it’s just always been that final mark in the night where I try to drop whatever I’m doing and sleep. Too often though one thing or another seems to push my evenings to that highest hour. So I’m resolved to sleep more. I wish I could start right now.
The third item is actually a junk list of small things like cleaning the dishes as they’re used instead of letting them stockpile like a nuclear arsenal in the kitchen sink. Another is more cooking and less ordering; it saves money but takes more time, it’s healthier but less convenient. So I’m trading laziness and time for money and health – sounds like a fair trade to me.
There are a lot of other things on the junk list – sometimes I’ll even do something positive unintentionally first and then think to add it, as if it was all part of the plan to begin with. I like having the evolving junk list because it reminds me to do the little things and lets me note the baby steps of positive improvement. Some people say half the battle is motivation, but I disagree; it’s the whole war and every little sign of encouragement should be taken advantage of.
The most important thing to remember is that by this time next year you want to be able to look in the mirror and say that the past 12 months weren’t stagnant. Don’t worry if you don’t have the six pack just yet. I have a friends who resolve to quit smoking each year and a lot of people’s resolutions are actually just re-solutions to old habits. I’m sure any exercise you do get didn’t do your health any harm and every less cigarette smoked, the better. No one is perfect and unless you were born that way, life is too short not to try and make yourself a better person.
Over time who we are can be steered towards who we want to be. Life is certainly crazy, but we’re not helpless and a degree of control does exist. We’re each at the helm of our small slice of fate, so grab the wheel and turn it in a direction you want to head.