an alternative to new year's resolutions

when i was younger i was dumber. . . a lot dumber about some very common sense kinds of things. . . such as the idiocy of making new year resolutions that even Mother Theresa couldn't keep.

every year i would carefully write out 3 or 4 OR 5 or 10 goals for the coming year. . .

(side road - yeah, i'm a bit of a deluded overachiever. i am a bona fide type A workaholic who suffers from delusions or hallucinations - not sure which - concerning getting 29.5 hours of work crammed into the standard issue 24 hour day with a minimum of 6 hours of sleep. and yes, i know, once i type it and see it in print, the whole absurdity of it makes me question my sanity. it might be time for a reality check. . . time machines have not been invented yet. . . regardless of what EBay has to offer.)

back to the goals. . . i want you to know that i had carefully prayed over those resolutions. they were a part of the divine plan for my life. Philippians 4:13 had me covered. failure was not an option. . . but it was a certainty. one simply cannot improve one's posture and penmanship while developing a new personality, working towards world peace, writing this year's vacation bible school theme song, and memorizing the book of 2 Chronicles. there just aren't enough hours in the day.

in this case, failure was not a backdoor to success regardless of what my favorite pastor of Moody Church in Chicago had to say about it. failure was failure. i had tied this whole thing into my spirituality and so by the end of January, and sometimes sooner, i was a mess, but an optimistically determined one - as evidenced by the same scenario played out 11 months later.

but then i kinda developed a new "bring in the new year" ritual. i call it the auld lang syne binge purge. i binge on self-loathing and pity while mulling over last year's blunders until i want to vomit. and then i write it all down - every pickin' mistake and shortcoming that registered at least a 2.1 on the richter scale of failure (some years i've had to use adding machine tape). as soon as i'm done, i go out into the night and set the paper on fire, watch it burn until it is gone while singing one verse of auld lang syne. and then i go to bed ready to start the new year with hope and a sense of endless possibilities instead of premonitions of guilt and depression.

i can't say much more than this - it works for me.

if you decide to try this at home, a small suggestion. . . sing quietly while you're outside burning last year's list, especially if you're in your pj's - you'll have less explaining to do to your neighbors and the nice policeman with his breathalyzer kit.