New Year's Resolutions

 Photo by SpaPax

I know it is only the sixth of December, but I want to ring a bell for New Year's Resolutions RIGHT NOW! This is something that needs careful attention, planning, and self-examination, and I am certainly not going to wait until December 31st confronts me with its sparkling lights and champagne glasses to reflect on the direction I want to set for myself!*

I have a firm and long-held belief that New Year's Resolutions should NOT be boring, draining, or even necessary pledges. The reason most people don't hold fast to their self-imposed vows is because they pick something they think they should resolve to do, be, or accomplish, and not a change or habit that they want or even crave in their new lives in the next year. Eventually, most people start a petulant, teenage resentment circle in their heads and either get annoyed with their own imperatives (I'll go to the gym more or learn to pick up my dirty socks when I FEEL like it, okay MOM?) or just give up (It's too big of a goal to accomplish, anyway, so I'm not even going to keep working on this stupid book!). When New Year's Resolutions are formed as leashes used to hold yourself to a goal or idea that really isn't coming from your heart, they can't and won't be sustained throughout the year or result in any measurable life improvements.

Photo by koinus

This is why I must take this opportunity to heartily encourage all of you to pick something FUN, UNUSUAL or BRAVE for your NYR this year, and humbly request suggestions for my own resolution. I usually pick pretty unusual goals for myself, and I'm having trouble pinpointing what I want to do in 2011 to help define myself, for myself. Because really, we all need to focus on our own journeys and help to satisfy our own self-image first, before we focus on how we present ourselves to others. Amen!

Here are some past examples of my own old resolutions to help inspire you:

 2006: Read 100+ Books

 Photo by FilmDave

In retrospect, I consider this to be 'starting small' regarding interesting resolutions. It's not that far off from a normal vow, despite being very ambitious. However, I read extremely fast and easily outpaced this goal. It was the beginning of a good habit for me, though, wherein I now keep a list of all the books I read each year. Reviewing it is helpful to my poor memory, especially since I give away, donate or sell almost all of the books I read in order to maintain walking space in my house. Also, I can now vaguely track my spare time (how OCD of me) by checking the total number of books against other things, like the volume of my writing projects and the amount of crochet I've completed. Okay, this sounds totally psycho, but sometimes it is good to know exactly how you spend your life!

If you read a lot, I highly recommend keeping a list for yourself. It sounds simple, but it is a powerful organizational and memory tool.

 2007: Throw A Drink in Someone's Face

Photo by Not Jane Doe

Here's where it started to get interesting. This sounds totally rude AND IT IS, which is why I wanted to do it. Everyone has had those moments when other people have said or done things that were completely out of line, and very often we are too timid and proper to give someone a well-deserved smack. I had a lot of those moments in 2005 and 2006, and I just took what those assholes were dishing out without really responding in a way that let them know they were acting or speaking unacceptably.

I decided that I needed to learn to stand up for myself in both business and social situations and not allow others to have the power to talk down to me or to purposely take advantage of me. This resolution was about empowerment, finding my own voice, and clearly defining myself as someone who would rather make waves than sit back and let myself be treated poorly. I realized that I would stand up for other people more often than I stood up for myself. I'd fight like a tiger for friends and family who had been wronged, but just give up on issues that had to do with my own life. With this resolution, I gave myself permission to do something that might get me in 'trouble,' and having that wildcard in my back pocket helped me be more assertive and self-possessed for the entire year.

 2008: Teach Myself to Raise One Eyebrow at a Time

Photo of Mark

One of my high school friends has incredible eyebrow powers, and he would sort of taunt me with his prowess because I did not have the capability to do the wry 'immobile face/singular eyebrow raise' thing. It was quite annoying to have to, you know, use words to express my emotions when he could counter with a much more expressive look.

When I found out that he had actually taught himself to do this from scratch, I was amazed. Quizzing him obsessively about his technique and time line helped me to figure out that he developed this mastery by combining sheer force of will with a simple understanding of how the muscles in the face work.  After a few minutes of  instruction, I had a new goal in life. 

Why would I want to focus on something this inane for an entire year? Because I knew it was possible! I'm never going to resolve to go to the gym and get really muscled, because that just doesn't fit with my personality. But focusing on developing my one wry eyebrow to help my face become more expressive - now that, I can get behind!

2009: Green Eyes, All the time 

Photo by Ruth Flickr

This builds from the previous year, in which I had moderate (some might say, amazing) success at retraining my body to do what I wanted, despite the dubiousness of my friends and family that my goal was even possible. I have hazel eyes, and for my next trick I wanted to see if by learning to focus I could enhance the green. (No, colored contacts were too easy to employ.)

Here are some questions to consider: What do you want to do with your body? Do you want to leave it alone, natural, in the original packaging, like a collector's toy that sits on a shelf? Do you want to rip it apart and put it back together in a new way by changing your hair color, your eye color, your muscle structure? Do you want to totally renovate your physicality by adding tattoos, piercings, permanent makeup? Do you want to invest in plastic surgery? Do you even care how you present yourself to the outside world?

In 2008 I started to think about these things for the first time in my life. Up until then, I just accepted what was given to me. If I gained weight, then I gained weight. If my freckles bothered me, I just didn't look in the mirror (a fact that is very evident when looking at many disastrous photos from over the years). Honestly, I would wash my face, brush my teeth and hair, and call it a day. No makeup, no hair products, no extended efforts. And that's fine, because it never occurred to me to want to do anything else. But as I noticed myself aging in small ways for the first time, I started to understand that I could be a more active participant in the continuous development of my outer self. I can devote time and energy to changing my body.

That sounds so elementary, but I've always been much more focused on my mind so it was a new idea to me. I'd rather spend time reading a book than painting my fingernails. But then the knowledge is invisible in my head and my fingernails are odd lengths. This resolution continued my development of what I thought was important to change about my outer self to improve my self image. It sounds weird because controlling your eye color internally isn't something that most people focus on, but it kept me on a self-awareness track that I needed to strengthen from the previous year.

2010: Drink More

Photo by  nImAdestiny

 What an awesome goal! I might be the one person on the planet who vowed to drink more, not less, in the coming year. Again, this has ties to the direction I wanted to set for my life for this year, namely to go out more and to be more social instead of getting bogged down with work and life. I drink when I'm with my friends, when I'm at parties, when I'm traveling, when I go out and enjoy myself instead of staying home to read (see how the pendulum has swung?). This resolution made me get off my butt and call people I don't see all the time instead of just thinking about how nice it would be if we got together. And that is exactly what I needed this year!

So, now that you think I'm completely insane...any suggestions for my 2011 whimsical life goal? Are you thinking about yours yet? Let me know!

Photo by Leo Reynolds

*Please do not laugh at this sentence after you read my past resolutions! They might be funny and off the wall, but I do take them seriously and attempt to find things that not only highlight a sense of whimsy but also connect to bigger issues of self-image and life-adjustment.