Traditional at this time of year is the laughable activity of making resolutions, things that you will or won't do in order to make yourself a better person. Traditional activities for a weeks time therefore include things like forgetting to go the the gym, smoking, eating out, what ever it happens to be.
The theory behind this is that with a new year comes a new chance to make things anew - to stop doings that you don't think you should be doing or to start doing things that you should be doing. This is ridiculous. The only thing that a new year really brings is a new number and a new excuse for the retail industry to 'lower' prices again (excuse my cynicism). It must be noted here that I have nothing against the resolution itself, the thing that I object to is the idea that these things must be undertaken at the new year.
In the movie Fight Club, a main character says that self improvement is worthless, and that self destruction is a better path to yourself. The theory behind this is the engineering theory that when you take anything that is unessential, you are left with something that is essentially perfect. This is in one sense true. However, what it fails to take into account is that humanity and human life is not some engineering project, it isn't a great finished work. Every human is a work in progress, but every human is a work in progress that hasn't found its exhaustive list of purposes yet. What I mean is that every person living will almost definately have to change what they are doing at some future stage in their lives, and that will probably require adding something, not taking something away.
But that's not what I wanted to discuss. Stop making me digress people or I'll never get to the point.
In every endeavour, if you do not progress or advance, you recede. This is what a resolution is. It is an attempted advancement or progression to what you deem as a better you. The problem is that in general we either pick something that is only a minor change, I will wear my underwear for less than two weeks at a time before washing them, or we pick something that is so hard we will never be able to do it, I will finish the last three years of my medicine degree while picking up a degree in law for thursday afternoons by the end of January. This way we can either feel good about doing something, or we can placate ourselves by saying "well, you never really had a chance did you".
My call is for you to decide to make a change, and then another one, and then another one, and then another one until such time as you don't think about them anymore, but don't make this the resolution. If needed, make small changes, I will have only 17 servings instead of 18 at desert time, but keep making changes, otherwise you go backwards.
I'll leave you with a list of resolutions over time. See what you think.
The theory behind this is that with a new year comes a new chance to make things anew - to stop doings that you don't think you should be doing or to start doing things that you should be doing. This is ridiculous. The only thing that a new year really brings is a new number and a new excuse for the retail industry to 'lower' prices again (excuse my cynicism). It must be noted here that I have nothing against the resolution itself, the thing that I object to is the idea that these things must be undertaken at the new year.
In the movie Fight Club, a main character says that self improvement is worthless, and that self destruction is a better path to yourself. The theory behind this is the engineering theory that when you take anything that is unessential, you are left with something that is essentially perfect. This is in one sense true. However, what it fails to take into account is that humanity and human life is not some engineering project, it isn't a great finished work. Every human is a work in progress, but every human is a work in progress that hasn't found its exhaustive list of purposes yet. What I mean is that every person living will almost definately have to change what they are doing at some future stage in their lives, and that will probably require adding something, not taking something away.
But that's not what I wanted to discuss. Stop making me digress people or I'll never get to the point.
In every endeavour, if you do not progress or advance, you recede. This is what a resolution is. It is an attempted advancement or progression to what you deem as a better you. The problem is that in general we either pick something that is only a minor change, I will wear my underwear for less than two weeks at a time before washing them, or we pick something that is so hard we will never be able to do it, I will finish the last three years of my medicine degree while picking up a degree in law for thursday afternoons by the end of January. This way we can either feel good about doing something, or we can placate ourselves by saying "well, you never really had a chance did you".
My call is for you to decide to make a change, and then another one, and then another one, and then another one until such time as you don't think about them anymore, but don't make this the resolution. If needed, make small changes, I will have only 17 servings instead of 18 at desert time, but keep making changes, otherwise you go backwards.
I'll leave you with a list of resolutions over time. See what you think.
- 2009: I will pay off my bank loan promptly.
- 2010: I will pay off my bank loans promptly.
- 2011: I will be totally out of debt by next year.
- 2012: I will try to pay off the debt interest by next year.
- 2013: I will try to be out of the country by next year.
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