Thursday, January 5, 2012

Resolution Weak...er, Week

O.K. One more word on New Year’s resolutions. And that word is: BORING.

Lose weight. Get fit. Become a saint. The standard trifecta of resolutions. Don’t we hear these every year? Same old, same old. Yawn, yawn, and yawn.

C’mon, people. Here it is a brand new year and already we can’t have more fun than this? Are we stuck with the same, tired old pedantic, heavy-handed resolutions that only 1% of the population is going to keep anyway? Wouldn’t we all rather hear some original, off the wall ideas for becoming a better person? I certainly would. Let’s do try to be a bit more creative.

Besides, the diet/exercise/saint plan involves such monumental effort that apparently they produce an extremely high failure rate. Why? Because they are so drastic. Maybe you’ve participated in them for a period of time yourself. If you’ve made it to February in the past, you are a hero.

No, I’m here to recommend more manageable pledges. I mean the magazines and talk shows that will today promote New Year’s diets propose  all the rest of the year that we try “small changes that can make a big difference.”

So, let’s take that advice and apply it to finding some more imaginative opportunities for our self-improvement. Let’s spice it up a bit. Here’s my challenge: think outside the usual New Year’s resolution box and maybe post your ideas – all rated for family reading, of course.

Here’s a handful of small steps that I’m thinking about that will surely make my 2012 better. You are welcome to take them for yourself, or let them be inspiration for some creative resolutions of your own.

1.       “Remove Promptly from Dryer.”  Yes, I vow to take clothes out of the dryer as soon as the buzzer goes off (or soon after) so that our sheets, tea towels, tee shirts and jeans will cease looking like crumpled paper bags which they inevitably do if I let them sit in there for 3 or 4 days.



2.       Resist restacking the dishwasher after Ken has loaded it. For the sake of domestic harmony, I will try to accept the chaos in which I find the dishwasher after Ken has loaded the dishes. I will not remove the dishes and restack according to my obsessive-compulsive pattern which is the same each and every time. Even though this will make me nuts, and I swear I can get way more dishes in there than he can, I will learn to accept that his way of loading is driven by more creative impulses than my own.



3.       Have the cake and enjoy it, too. On the Today Show this week, Dr. Oz offered this advice: go ahead and have real sugar in your coffee instead of artificial sweetener. It will only amount to 20 calories, it will taste so much better and you will enjoy it. Elaborating on that note, I say, sure, it is wisest to shun cakes and pies over the long run, but if you do have dessert, enjoy it, for heaven's sake. Or as a birthday card I saw this week says, quoting Erma Bombeck, “Seize the moment! Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved-off the dessert cart.”



4.       a. Do something healthy for my heart. In a similar vein, I also saw a birthday card that quotes Benjamin Franklin as having said, “Wine is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” Amen to that! But then, I wasn’t going to give up wine anyway.



b. Find sources for inspirational reading other than greeting cards.



5.       Throw out the fat pants. In the entire lexicon of weight loss advice that is out there, I stumbled upon this most useful suggestion. It means that you intend to move forward rather than dwell on the past. I will throw out the fat pants just as soon as I fit into the skinny pants.



6.       Try the peanut soup. On a visit to Winnipeg to see my mother one time when she was getting pretty close to 90, I took her out to lunch at her favorite café in the mall bookstore near where she lived. Her seniors’ residence took everyone on the shuttle bus to this mall for their weekly shopping. To my knowledge, mother had eaten only very ordinary, very plain food all her life. But this day she ordered the Spicy African Peanut Soup. I said, “Mum, are you sure?” “Oh, yes,” she replied nonchalantly, “I have this all the time. It’s quite good. You should try some, dear.” A metaphor to be sure.

So, there are some ideas. I hope 2012 will be an original year for you and yours.


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