Welcome to the most painful day of the entire year.
Where as New's Year's Eve has the potential to be both amazing and/or terrible, New Year's Day is pretty much all about pain. First of all, for the lucky majority, there is the hangover. For teachers, students, and most people in education, this day marks the last of Holiday Break. For the rest of the work force, it means no more lax December, office parties, leaving work early, etc. For all of us: no more letting our pocketbooks run wild.
Of course, it would be un-American if we kept the pain to the minimum and just nursed our hangover and dreaded going back to work. No, we add a deep individualistic angst to the entire day by forcing ourselves to confront all that we dislike with ourselves and swear to do better. Yesterday, after that third martini, we let ourselves admit our failings and announced we could defeat our inner demons. Today those demons look massive, fierce and angry.
There's always those statistics that 50-60-70 percent of all New Year's resolutions end in failure. Yet, I don't think a certain amount of self-reflection and criticism is ever bad. Who (but ourselves) should care if we fail at our resolutions--at least we tried. At least we admit we aren't "God's gift to humanity" and we want to better. We believe enough in ourselves to try.
When I was growing up, my father would gather us together on New Year's Day and hand each of us an index card. On it we had to write five resolutions for ourselves and one resolution for each member of the family. This usually amounted to us asking my mom not to yell so much or my brother Nathan to be nicer to my mom. I remember these as common themes throughout the years. Some may say that it isn't nice or productive to have had us point out each others failings. I guess it was our family's version of a
Festivus tradition. But resolutions are not just about our failings. Our resolutions to our family members were a belief that they could do better. There was criticism lined with support. I tried to continue the tradition with my husband, but he found the whole thing to be too critical. Also, he doesn't need to set goals to get things done. He decides he really wants to do it, and he does it. That's how he works.
But for the rest of us folks who need a little help with the focus, or those of us who like to pre-plan, I recommend taking New Year's Day as a day to rest, relax, and reflect. From this centered self, set your New Year's resolutions and make a plan. If you are losing weight, throw away those leftover Christmas cookies and dust of your tennis shoes. If you are quitting smoking, go stock-up on the patch, the gum, toothpicks or whatever you're gonna need. If you want to volunteer more, make a list of places you'd like to volunteer. If you want to get out of debt, do some research on how others have done it, make a budget, plan what you can cut. I'm a strong believer in preparation.
And then start your resolution tomorrow, because we've all got enough pain to deal with today.
