New Years Resolutions

 New Year’s Resolutions

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been making Resolutions for most of my life.

I don’t remember when I started making them or why I did. It wasn’t something my parents did. I know that for a fact. New Year’s Eve they were always too busy partying with their friends to sit down and make a list of changes they would like to make in their lives. But like I said, I’ve been making Resolutions for a long time.

Recently, I looked over my New Year’s Resolutions for the last 10 years, and they are pretty much the same from year to year.

Here they are:

I will lose 25 pounds.

I will spend more time playing with my granddaughter Lulu.

I will ride my bike on good weather days.

I will be a better friend to my friends.

I will read 50 novels this year.

I will write 2 hours a day.

I will do yoga or Pilates every other day.

I will clean up my book shelves.

I will keep track of my wife’s earrings.

I will not make any mistakes!

It’s an interesting list, and the fact that I have pretty much the same list year after year tells you something pretty obvious about my ability to hold to these resolutions. For the most part, I can’t. To be honest with you all, I’ve only accomplished two of the resolutions this year.

First, I’ve managed to clean up my bookshelves. But I had little choice. We moved recently, and I had to box and move my totally chaotic 10,000 book library. (I should also add that some members of my immediate family like my wife, my daughter, and my granddaughter think my bookshelves still need pruning).

Second, I managed to lose 25 pounds. But before you start applauding me, let me explain I lost them because of a health emergency that hit me in September. I came down with the Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, a tick-borne disease that kills your appetite.

But the other stuff? Nope. Nada. Nothing.

Reading a novel a week? Not even close. I think I started reading a novel a month ago but I’ve lost it.

Writing 2 hours a day? I’ve come close. I was doing really well with the fourth novel in my Hank and Marvin mystery series, and then we had to move into the new house. Prepping for that and then actually moving ate up a lot of time. Then there was our London vacation! You can’t write if you’re wandering around London.

Yoga and Pilates? Nope. In fact the only exercise I have been doing is for my bum knee.

Bike riding? I look at my terrific bike every time I go into the garage and I think about how much I loved biking and how my bum knee has screwed up that love.

Be a better friend to my friends? Hard to do when most of the time you spend with your friends is on Facebook

So what am I going to do with these resolutions?

I think I’m going to scrap them and come up with a whole new New Year’s Resolution this year that has less to do with me and more to do with the people I love and the world I love.

So here’s my Resolution for this year:

I’m going to love the people I love, and let them love me, and I’m going to work to make sure the world I love stays safe from the people who want to change it.

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An old column I wrote for the Dziennik Zwiazkowy, Chicago’s Polish Daily News.

https://dziennikzwiazkowy.com/felietony2/guzlowski/noworoczne-postanowienia/