New Year’s Resolution
Have you ever had the thought: “Ya know, If I trained everyday for four hours each day, I could probably be an olympic athlete. And now that we’re on the subject, yes, I am going for gold. Friends, family, doubters - the games are only one year out; I need yall’s support, not your realistic expectations.” Or maybe the less ambitious thought: “No, I’ve never touched a guitar before, but maybe I’ll sign up for lessons, and then practice everyday, and then start a band, and then go full Hollywood, and then produce a hit single followed by my hit album. Yes, now that you mention it, I am a rock star.” Or how about: “I have neither the education to get the job done nor the time if I did, but I’m going to teach myself the skills and beat my schedule until extra time bleeds out - and write a New York Times best seller.”
Ok cool. Fueled with an ‘I can do anything’ passion, you sit down on the couch and start planning. You look at your blueprint schedule for the day. Eights hours of sleep, that’s a given. You haven’t signed any endorsement deals yet, so you’ll give work eight hours as well. It takes 30 minutes to get ready, 45 minutes to bus to work, and 45 minutes back. What else, oh yeah, meals and household chores. Unfortunately you don’t have a dishwasher, so that eats a lot of your time. An estimate of 2 hours a day seems appropriate for food and chores. After drawing two dashed lines, signifying you’ve reached the end of the sum, you total four hours. Perfect, that’s the exact amount of time needed to master your desired skill!
But wait… you forgot about your cats. Subtly implying they’re out of food, they maliciously claw you in the face. The pet store is only a few blocks walk away, so following a cut scene transition (you successfully fought off the angry cats before leaving) you’re already back, cat food in hand. At peak efficiency, only 30 minutes have been drained, now at 3.5 hours.
Maybe it didn’t happen on this particular day, here’s the list of ways life can get in the way: groceries (+45 minutes), pile-up laundry (+30), excessive work (+60), slow traffic (+30), unkempt bill management (+45), insert general adulting item (+30). Also add the transition between time, because you can’t teleport and starting a new task takes time (+30). While this may not be convincing coming from a young twenty-something (the adulting age when you have the least amount of responsibility), my point is you have less time than initially estimated.
Your perfect plan has been wrecked. You’ve only got one hour left in the day and, more prominent, you’re mentally exhausted from all the unplanned exertion. With only one hour left, you (relatable-ly) decide to watch two episodes of Community on Netflix instead. (Is anyone else on season 5? Asking for a friend.) Your olympic, rock-star, best-seller dreams are put back on the shelf.
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Recently I’ve been thinking about ideas for my New Year’s Resolution. I’d like to be a striking writer (putting it humbly for an alluded goal, which by saying it out loud, seems to make it less of a possibility because it’s maybe not realistic). So, with that in mind, my initial thought was: “I’m going to write 500 words everyday.” My girlfriend raised both eyebrows. “Well,” I respond. “It’d be an average. I could do higher word counts on the weekend and write during my lunch break at work.” After sitting with the idea for a day, I decided she was probably right, too ambitious.
My 2020 New Year’s Resolution was to A, publish a book and B, pay off my student debts. Sallie Mae got hers, feels good to be done, but I failed with the primary goal. Somewhat discouraging, I didn’t get far. It’d be as if you were running a 5K for the last 30 minutes only to find out, oh shit it’s actually a marathon; I’ve got 37 more Ks to go. Turns out the goal wasn’t attainable in a year.
Nevertheless, I’m determined to stride toward that ultimate alluded goal. Maybe not going to the olympics anytime soon, my rock-star endorsement deals can wait, I at least want to at least put myself in position to improve. I’m thinking my 2021 New Year’s Resolution will be to learn more, read more, write more. I like this goal because it’s simple, measurable (in a binary sense), attainable, relevant, and tenacious. Some might say it’s a smart goal (especially if you missed that simple should have been specific and tenacious should have been timely #NicheJoke; I like mine better though).
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2021: Learn more, read more, write more (all with a focus on writing)
2020: Publish a book ✗ and pay off student loans ✓
2019: On average read one book every two weeks ✓
2018: Get a summer internship ✓
2017: Read the entire Bible ✗
2016: ? (Don’t remember because you decided to go for a bunch of small stuff rather than something big) ✗
2015: Break a world record ✓
2014: Go a year without eating any candy ✓
2013: Go a year without drinking any soda ✓
