New Year’s Resolutions
I was raised in a single parent household. I don’t know if that has anything to do with it (probably not), but my mother is the single most superstitious person on the face of the planet. No matter what happens, she reads some type of omen into it. If say, we’re talking about a common acquaintance, and one of us should happen to sneeze or cough in the middle of saying something, my mother will point and exclaim, “See; it’s true!”
One of her more annoying (or endearing, if you want to look at it that way) are her beliefs surrounding New Year’s Eve. For example, Mom firmly believes that the person at your side when the clock strikes midnight is the person who will be with you for the rest of the year. The fact that I can point to innumerable examples exploding that myth does nothing to shake her belief.
The reason I bring this up is because Mom telephoned me today to ask what my New Year’s resolution is going to be. When I informed her that I wasn’t going to make any, she was appalled.
What, she asked, would I do with the entire year if I had no goal to accomplish? What would be my reason for staying alive if I had no plans to achieve anything? Hadn’t she raised me better than that?
I calmed her down and explained that my resolutions were on-going. My commitment to a healthy, fit lifestyle was one. Endeavoring to treat everyone with a modicum of dignity and respect was another. Continuing to improve myself as a human being was a third. Those were, in my opinion, worthy resolutions, and ones I didn’t have to re-commit to each and every year.
There was a pause, and then Mom asked, “Don’t you have resolutions about making money?”
You gotta love that.
