Recycled Resolutions

Every year the question becomes whether to come up with resolutions. This year is no different. In fact, this year was different. When I thought about resolutions I could make, I came up with several that would looked good on any resolution list.

Then I asked myself what a New Year’s resolution really was. It has to be a promise one makes to oneself to make a change in one’s life - to give up a bad habit or try to make a new habit. Okay. I made a list of my bad habits.Then I made a list of the habits I’d like to cultivate.

Great. Two lists of resolutions. I decided to start with the bad habits. Which of them would I be willing to give up? Hmmm. Maybe I should have started with the list of habits I’d like to cultivate. Wait a second. Weren’t these the same habits I vowed to cultivate last year? After a short hunt, I located a list on my hard drive entitled, “2010 Resolutions.” Indeed, the resolutions were the same.

Is that what we do every year? We recycle old resolutions and call them new. Do we simply reword the old ones so we have a stock number that we keep so they magically appear on our next year’s resolution list?

I saw recent research that said 52% of the people responding to the poll said that they’re confident that they’ll succeed at their resolutions, but in reality only 12% actually achieve their goals.

All that being said, I can’t figure out which of the same old resolutions to recycle. So I think I’ll not make any.

So there.