New Year’s Resolutions... NOPE! *******************
The truth is… I don’t do resolutions. Never have. I do not believe in deliberately playing the role of Tantalus, or hanging the Sword of Damocles over my head purposely! Actually, I suppose, at some point in my younger years I DID make a resolution. That was…. I resolved never to make New Year’s Resolutions! New Year’s Resolutions date back to ancient Babylon, some 4,000 years ago. I suppose when one considers the history and the staying power of New Year’s Resolutions one would have to conclude that I am “bucking the tide”! One would also have to note that I am well within familiar territory in doing so.
I find “zest for life” if you will, in going my own way. It’s nice when others choose to accompany me, but it is certainly not a prerequisite for me to set a course into the wind.
During my broadcast career, I chose to work without a contract. Didn’t want one. At first my employers loved it. Then they grew to hate not having me tied to them in writing. Tough! I came and went pretty much as I pleased. I drove one employer out of his gourd by refusing to furnish the home office with sales projections for each month. I flatly refused to do it. My answer to the home office threats was… that my sales staff always performed at peak efficiency and they did not need the worry of not meeting a sales quota to get in the way of their thinking ability. I needed sales people who were thinkers AND doers. I did not need sales people who were worriers and I did need nor want the worry myself. After about four years that company and I parted ways. It was amicable but it was an untenable situation for both of us. I was not giving an inch and neither were they. So, they went their way… and I went mine. If I had it to do over again… I’d do the same thing.
I tell you this simply to say that I feel the same way toward resolutions of any kind. I was reared never to make promises I couldn’t keep… not to myself… not to anyone. I don’t do it… and it drives me nuts when others do it. If I tell you I will meet you someplace, at a given time, if I am not there, and you have not heard from me, you may reasonably assume I am dead.
Point is… if I were to make New Year’s Resolutions I would spent the next year obsessed with fulfilling those resolutions to the detriment of everything else and everyone around me. (Move over Mr. Monk!) So I don’t do it.
No, I have never needed public ridicule, as a result of failure, to spur me into making a more concerted effort toward reaching a stated goal. There’s something in that which strikes me as being, well, a little ‘sick”. And that is the lens through which I view New Year’s Resolutions.
Here you will find no resolutions. But… you will find best wishes for much happiness and prosperity in this New Year!
Longstreet
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The truth is… I don’t do resolutions. Never have. I do not believe in deliberately playing the role of Tantalus, or hanging the Sword of Damocles over my head purposely! Actually, I suppose, at some point in my younger years I DID make a resolution. That was…. I resolved never to make New Year’s Resolutions! New Year’s Resolutions date back to ancient Babylon, some 4,000 years ago. I suppose when one considers the history and the staying power of New Year’s Resolutions one would have to conclude that I am “bucking the tide”! One would also have to note that I am well within familiar territory in doing so.
I find “zest for life” if you will, in going my own way. It’s nice when others choose to accompany me, but it is certainly not a prerequisite for me to set a course into the wind.
During my broadcast career, I chose to work without a contract. Didn’t want one. At first my employers loved it. Then they grew to hate not having me tied to them in writing. Tough! I came and went pretty much as I pleased. I drove one employer out of his gourd by refusing to furnish the home office with sales projections for each month. I flatly refused to do it. My answer to the home office threats was… that my sales staff always performed at peak efficiency and they did not need the worry of not meeting a sales quota to get in the way of their thinking ability. I needed sales people who were thinkers AND doers. I did not need sales people who were worriers and I did need nor want the worry myself. After about four years that company and I parted ways. It was amicable but it was an untenable situation for both of us. I was not giving an inch and neither were they. So, they went their way… and I went mine. If I had it to do over again… I’d do the same thing.
I tell you this simply to say that I feel the same way toward resolutions of any kind. I was reared never to make promises I couldn’t keep… not to myself… not to anyone. I don’t do it… and it drives me nuts when others do it. If I tell you I will meet you someplace, at a given time, if I am not there, and you have not heard from me, you may reasonably assume I am dead.
Point is… if I were to make New Year’s Resolutions I would spent the next year obsessed with fulfilling those resolutions to the detriment of everything else and everyone around me. (Move over Mr. Monk!) So I don’t do it.
No, I have never needed public ridicule, as a result of failure, to spur me into making a more concerted effort toward reaching a stated goal. There’s something in that which strikes me as being, well, a little ‘sick”. And that is the lens through which I view New Year’s Resolutions.
Here you will find no resolutions. But… you will find best wishes for much happiness and prosperity in this New Year!
Longstreet
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