Okay, for real, if your resolution is to open doors for folks, and you do it, that’s awesome! You are an example of good deeds and common decency (though not so common these days). However, as long as I can remember, New Year’s Resolutions have never been about that. They are almost always about weight loss, achieving optimal health, working out, deprivation of some nature, and dieting. I’m not saying that these things on their own are bad or unattainable (well, I won’t get into that right now at least), but it does seem that New Year’s resolutions as a whole tend to be little more than posturing for the sake of conformity and societal pressures or at the very least conversation starters.

Why am I bringing all of this up the first week of December? Well, my boyfriend asked me the last two days about this very subject, though he knows my thoughts and feelings on it already. And I have already heard commercials for this bullshit on the radio, ugh! What was my response to his first, “So, what will your New Year’s Resolution be this year, Sarah?” I said simply, “I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions.” and flatly. He pushed a bit and so I said, “My New Year’s Resolutions is to be a Millionaire!” he looked surprised and confused, so I elaborated, “Well, as I see it, I have about as much of a chance at becoming a Millionaire as most folks do with their New Year’s Resolutions!” He was not amused, but I sure as hell was.

Last night he brought it up again, “I think you should try a New Year’s Resolution, you might like it!” I chuckled a bit and then replied, “It’s not that I’ve never done the whole New Year’s Resolutions thing, it’s just that I think it’s absurd bullshit and if I wanted to change something about myself I just would. I don’t need a timetable or deadline to push me towards it. Besides, I need a fucking job, not a resolution!” True facts! He made a suggestion of perhaps budgeting my spending in the new year, to which I did have a decent laugh at, though not in a mean way. It’s just that you can’t budget for what doesn’t exist is all. I think he finally understood that it’s just not going to happen with me.

I’m not a natural goal setting type of person, though no disrespect to those who are. I get that that is a natural way of being for many, it’s just not something that has worked for me personally. Have I set my sights on something and then achieved it? Of course! I know how to do the thing, I would just rather go about doing it than talk about it and write down incremental steps, etcetera. I suppose I do those things to some degree bu typically not for myself, I’m more of a thinker-doer these days than a planner. It’s far too easy to get caught up in meaningless details that go into planning something for me. Just like with events, the devil may be in the details, but the details with drive you to the devil for sure! Perfectionism is a sick cycle, IMO. To be a perfectionist, or to call oneself one, is to admit that you are far from it! Perfection is a myth; let it go.

I am not under any obligation to participate in anything I do not agree with. Period. Plain as. Conformity ain’t my bag, baby. Have you seen me?! Ha-ha! Seriously, though, I don’t often socialize with chronic dieters or resolution makers so it’s not like this comes up that much for me these days, but I am looking (desperately) for a job and this may very well come up! In such instances where conversation matters even when the topic at hand is ridiculous, I might go with something fluffy like, “I will be celebrating my flaws in the new year!” or “recommit myself to my language lessons!” seems far more reasonable than becoming an entirely new person in one night or one year. Certainly a year does change a person, but we don’t necessarily have control over the changes or what caused them to begin with.

I can say with absolute honesty that all of my problems are external at the moment. I need a job, but prefer a career, and I have been doing everything I can to make that happen. My car needs new tires, rear bumper repaired, oil changed and a good cleaning. No money, so that ain’t happening. My financial problems are far greater than I have let on to most who know me well. My unemployment benefits money, while fantastic that it exists and that I get it, only covers my very very basic necessities (rent, insurance, phone, loan payment), but not enough for things like food and gas. So I have been living little by little off of my credit card. *Sigh* It’s not what I want, but it’s what I must do. So, a resolution? Can I just not be poor? I’d love to suddenly wake out without mental illnesses, but that’s not a thing I can just attain.

To set a resolution to be your best self is great, but it only begs the question of why New Year’s? What have you been doing until now that prevented your best self from surfacing? What in your life is holding you back? Maybe ditch whatever that is first! Am I looking at this too plainly? Am I missing some deep spiritual point? It all seems like going through the motions for me. Like when I got into trouble as a child for questioning the nuns about the purpose versus the modern practice of lent. Oops! (I might always be that girl!) Ha-ha! I don’t think that this is a natural phenomenon. I don’t think we as a species would naturally decide on our own that this is something we do or must. Certainly in history we were hardly concerned with weight loss or ever associated it with health. And can I seriously bring up the problematic shit that health is something we must all be striving for? We don’t all have that fucking option, okay?!

Think a moment (or more) about what feeds you, what fuels you, what drives you and what brings more joy and passion into your life. That is what you should be focusing on every day and not just as a goal setting practice you participate in annually with the rest of society. I have been thinking a lot about this. What drives me? What is my passion? What brings me joy? What fulfills me? The truth is I don’t have answers to those questions but one: What brings me joy? People: My love, my chosen family, my puggo, my friends and the flora and fauna of our planet. That brings joy into my heart. But the rest? I have been thinking on those for some time now and I think for the first time in my life there were no obvious answers or any answers at all.

So that’s where I’m at. What about you?

Rad Fatty Love,
<3
S

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