No Resolutions – No Regrets
It’s the start of a new year and for many of us, the start of new stresses and stressors. Ironically, January marks the beginning of one of the biggest stressors for the entire year: the New Year’s Resolution. It’s an insidious little contraption that makes even the heartiest of us sweat.
Think about it. As if the holiday season isn’t stressful enough, as soon as it’s over – presents unwrapped and returned, relatives back in their own abodes, bank accounts recovering – we suddenly remember that we haven’t made any resolutions for the New Year. Rather than basking in the excitement that a fresh 365 days promises — we’re now sweating to determine appropriate resolutions – lofty but personal, personal but altruistic, attainable but with a respectable smatter of stretch. For 2014, we will lose the weight, save money, spend more time with the kids, volunteer at the retirement home down the street. While each of these is a worthy enough goal, the very act of establishing rules for the year is stress inducing.
Each year, I start off hopeful enough. As the months move along, I start feeling sluggish. I look at my list and feel like a loser. I’m even less motivated and getting more stressed as I realize I haven’t quite accomplished my resolutions and – gasp! – haven’t even started most of them.
This year, I’m done with all that. In the interest of my mental health and overall well being, I am anti-New Year’s Resolution.
Yep, you read that correctly. No more resolutions.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for healthy, life-affirming goals. I’m just tired of the stress it causes me every New Year.
Because I’m an optimist by nature, at first this new stance felt somehow cynical and jaded (adjectives you’ll never hear used to describe me). Anti anything just didn’t resonate with the authentic me.
Then it hit me – the perfect balance between eternal optimist and pragmatic realist. Tell me what you think: This year, my resolution is to be proudly anti-New Year’s Resolution. Gotta love the way my mind works.
A resolution to be anti-resolution. You can’t get less stress-inducing than that.
