New Years is always kind of rough on me, because it’s the
time of year that I chose to evaluate myself and my performance in life-and I always
seem to come up short. I don’t know how it works if you’re not crazy, but for
me New Years entails retrospection, revisitation of unmet goals, and the
determination to do better next year. It’s really not all that inspiring,
because even in when I improve, even when I know I’ve done better, there’s always
some goal that’s left unmet, something that I’m still not doing perfectly (because
perfection is completely rational and attainable goal, right?) which causes me
to tailspin and crank out a list of even more ridiculous and unattainable goals
for the next year. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I don’t want to do that to myself this year.
Let’s face it, we all know where we’re lacking. I can list
my faults off to you without blinking, because I am fully aware that I am a
crazy mess of confusion and apathy. I don’t care enough about other people. I
don’t spend enough time with my children. I don’t spend enough time with God. I
read too much fiction. My brain is going to atophy from lack of use, and I don’t
exercise enough. I spend far too much of my time thinking about clothing and
food and when the next time I get to sleep in will be (the answer is never; I’ve
learned this the hard way).
This is the short list, mind you, not the extended version.
Frankly, I can’t even remember my new year’s resolutions
from last year, and I’m keeping this way. I don’t want to know. I don’t need to
check to know that I didn’t keep them. I can just tell you right here and now:
I probably did not even do half of them, because the list comprised of things
like “Exercise every day (never gonna happen),” “Learn Latin (because dead
languages are so helpful to know)” and “Find a boy you don’t hate to go out
with (unlikely).”
If I were truly enlightened, if this blog had a really good
point, I would tell you that I’m not even going to put together a list of
resolutions this year, that I’m just going to improve myself in an organic,
unhurried, unquantified way. But my name is Alisha and I really can’t do that.
Writing that sentence was making me shudder, actually.
So instead, I’m just going to say that this year, instead of
making unrealistic goals for myself and calling myself a failure at the end of
the year, I’m going to make unrealistic goals that I might actually follow.
Like “Make time for kids daily (well, that one is actually a little realistic)”
and “Read three non-fiction book a month.”
Who knows? Maybe next year I’ll be a success. Whatever
happens, whether or not my self-improvement is quantifiable to me, it doesn’t
really matter. The point is to keep trying, even when you feel like you’re not
making any progress. I read this excellent quote once that went like this:
How do you know if you’ve fulfilled your purpose in life?
If you’re still alive, you haven’t.
So I guess I still have a ways to go.