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Just saying: Resolution on resolutions

REPORTER FILE PHOTO Some things never change: New Year's Eve brings fireworks and a debate about resolutions from our columnist resolutions.
REPORTER FILE PHOTO | Some things never change: New Year’s Eve brings fireworks and a debate about resolutions from our columnist.

My track record on New Year’s resolutions is pathetic.

It’s not so much that I’ve failed to accomplish my self-improvement goals. I have a problem with the whole concept.

The dawning of a new year is a freighted time for addressing shortcomings. Many adults (me included) often soldier through the holidays, putting great stress on the finite reserves of social grace required to navigate in venues usually not of one’s own choosing or preference. There can be a gradual emotional wearing down as the year wanes.

Sometimes, you surprisingly breeze through. But more often than not it feels good to see the schmoozing and schlepping come into focus in the rearview mirror. It is simply not a good time to take a hard look at yourself and compile a list of grievances. In a weakened state, you may overreact and need a second page to capture the full extent of your personal felonies, misdemeanors and peccadilloes — the peccadilloes are often the killer.

I’ve never written them down.

The act of forming sentences about improvement scenarios is, in my book, a guarantee of failure. What is more galling than a list of resolutions? Even if you bury the list in that pile of paperwork that you’ve ignored for the past seven months, it’s still there, mocking you, fully aware of its power to silently nag and harass.

Self-critical sentences can sting. Who knows your secret failings better than you? If you’re honest and clear-eyed, these sentences can describe a personality that is in need of a major overhaul. Who needs that on New Year’s Day? The hangover days are a distant memory, but you have other priorities to think about as the sand finally trickles through the psychological hour glass, like remembering to put 2016 on checks.

The key is to make resolutions silently, internally and never utter them out loud. Telling a close friend is a no-no. Sharing with a spouse is just plain loco. Inside, the resolutions are free to roam wherever they want — the brain, the large intestine, often finding the spleen to be a great location. But once escaped from the throat and drifting among the general population, they are tyrants.

I don’t want to know your resolutions, your successes and failures. You knowing mine would be torture. These are my unique issues, most of which are so goofy that I would decline in stature if you knew them. In other words, it’s all a big cover-up and that’s the way I like it.

But … I did have one significant success, resolution-wise. It was 15 years ago. I was a runner back then and I soberly decided to run the New York City Marathon. I did it by the book: I looked in the mirror on New Year’s Eve and locked into the resolution, silently. I started training and as my runs became longer and impossible to ignore, I shared the resolution openly, realizing that with others knowing, I would find encouragement in their communal support. As any marathoner will tell you, actually running the marathon is such a wonderful conclusion of months of mindless effort, that the pain feels richly deserved. No more training!

That was the last big resolution. But like everyone else, I have the (now) perennial set of resolutions of drinking less, working out more and losing 10 pounds.

These are not really resolutions but parodies of resolutions. Does anyone pretend to follow through on these loser resolutions? They are the emptiest words in the language.

I resolve, silently, to be resolution-less on January 1.