Have you ever made a resolution on New Year’s Eve that you did not keep? If you answered “no” to that question, you are in the minority (and may be “fudging” a little bit). Who among us has made a resolution on January 1st, seconds after midnight and actually kept it in a longterm fashion? Sure, there are some people, “outliers” I will call them, who have kept those resolutions, but for most of us, the momentum may carry for a few weeks, but then fizzles away like the smoldering embers of what was once a raging campfire.
Perhaps those optimistic resolutions fade because with the romance of starting over with the New Year we dream up goals we can’t possibly keep. Or maybe the champagne being consumed is the fuel that drives the resolution bus, only to run out of “gas” with the next day’s hangover.
Either way, due to the incredibly poor percentage of resolutions that actually persist into February of each New Year, I propose that we change our resolutions to “New Summer’s Resolution”. Resolutions will be clearly outlined and announced (publicly or privately) on Memorial Day Weekend; not the official beginning of summer, but close enough.
I know that I am proposing that we buck a deeply entrenched tradition but shouldn’t we always question traditions that don’t seem beneficial? For example, if you have a tradition of banging your knee with a hammer but then notice it feels better when you stop, wouldn’t you stop?
It just seems that resolutions made at the beginning of summer would have a much better chance of surviving. In the winter, the New Year’s Eve festivities pass, the pomp and circumstance of the holidays and the college bowl games fade harshly into the freezing cold night and we are left facing the dreary days of January and February. We go from the White Christmas of December to the gray slush of January. Who wants to keep resolutions at that point? Trying to do that reminds me of the line from the movie “Airplane”; “It looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffin’ glue.”
Shift the scene to Memorial Day Weekend: flowers are blooming, everything is green, days are lighter and longer, and parks are filled with people who appear as though they have just been sprung from prison. Sure there is an occasional thunderstorm but how about that earthy greenhouse smell right after a good rain? This is the time to change. This is the time to make a resolution and run with it. Look at it this way: Do you move better in parkas and snow pants or shorts and a tshirt? Is it easier to drive on patchy ice in the driving snow or on clear on streets on a bright and sunny day?
I am not saying that we eliminate New Year’s Eve celebrations. We can create a new tradition for that. How about the New Year’s Hybernation? If that is too “couch potato” for you, how about we go with the New Year’s Revolution in which we revolt against the snow and cold and move to Hawaii for a couple of months. That, however, is likely logistically impossible for most of us. Maybe we just keep the New Year’s Resolution, but standardize it as a resolution to prepare for a successful New Summer’s Resolution.
In keeping with the seasonal theme of this article, I submit to you this final thought: And so I resolve as I end this write; to have a happy summer and to enjoy the extra light.