Happy New Year!

In this time of happiness and celebration, many people gather together with their families.  Whether you're rich or poor, fat or skinny, messy or neat, you can't help but look forward to the new year with optimism.  It's like a deep feeling, welling up inside you, that maybe this year, things will change.  Maybe this year, you'll finally get a better job, maybe this year, you'll finally lose some weight, maybe this year, you'll finally start keeping up with the household.

It's those maybes that spawn what we like to call "New Year's Resolutions."  It's the (usually incorrect) assumption that, just because the calendar says 2011 instead of 2010, that somehow it will make us able to do what we haven't been able to do for the last [insert random number] years.

I've always secretly mocked people who make New Year's Resolutions.  I've always thought of them as being stupid and pointless (the resolutions, not the people.... mostly).  It's not that I think I'm better than [most] of them, it's just that I see people making these resolutions, and then nothing ever changes.  What is it about a day on a calendar that makes us suddenly think we can unlearn what has become sometimes years upon years of bad behavior?  You can't suddenly get that job you wanted simply because it's one year later than it was the last time you said you were going to get that job you wanted.

Nothing is going to change unless YOU change it.  I guess that's what irritates me so much.  The New Year doesn't imbue you with magical powers to deal with stuff you haven't dealt with yet in your life.  You are the only one who can change the way you act and live your life, and no particular day of the year is going to help.  It could be August 15th, and you could change your life starting that day.

So, remember, if you decide to make a New Year's Resolution, it's up to YOU and no one else to see it through.  You have to make some serious life changes in order to pull off what you want to pull off, and you're the only one who can make those changes.

But don't let that discourage you from trying.  Even if you only get halfway to your goal, you're still farther than you were before, and every step in the right direction is a step away from your old behaviors.

Good luck in the New Year, and I'll see you on the flip-side.