By Tobin Barnes Look out. There’s a tradition circling around in the gleeful holiday atmosphere that tries to guilt you into making those little kind-of-difficult resolutions for the new year.
Bah! Humbug!
That’s right. Follow me and resist that Mary Sunshine twaddle with every fiber of your being.
If you’re a fairly mature (relax, no one gets all the way to full maturity), tax-paying, law-abiding, most-of-the-worst vices-avoiding, halfway-decent adult, you’ve already got plenty of pain-in-the-heinie things to do on an everyday basis. Please, don’t add to the list.
Think you’re going to win a prize by adding more difficulty to your life? Take a powder.
Besides, let’s face it, if you haven’t made those little tweaks to your performance by now, it’s probably not going to happen. Period.
(Disclaimer: I’m not talking about those who smoke their lungs into dust, gamble their finances into foreclosure, or drug themselves into oblivion. Those people need more dedication and perhaps professional help than a New Year’s Resolution is going to do them. They don’t need to resolve, they need to get on a program.)
On the other hand, the average better-yourself-a-little resolution just leads to yet another guilt trip. So spare yourself.
Of course, the hair shirt-wearing Puritans amongst you would disagree. But H.L. Mencken wisely described Puritanism as “The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” So don’t give in to it.
Like me, use the current holiday spirit self-compassionately and make some goof-proof resolutions instead.
For example, when there’s a good golf tournament on TV, I’m resolving to lie down on my couch and watch it, by golly. Yup, I’m going to Tivo it ahead of time, and I’m going to just plant myself there, fast-forward through the commercials, and wallow in golf, golf, golf.
And you know what? I’m going to score a near-100 percent success rate. (That’s if my wife doesn’t work herself into the equation. Then, of course, I’m dealing with a cosmic force, and as all you husbands know, all bets, not to mention resolutions, are completely off the grid. So it goes.)
Anyway, Tiger Woods is coming back this season from his injury, and he’ll be as good as ever, and there’s a bunch of young players out there who’ll challenge him and even beat him once in a while, and, hey, that’s fun, too.
Okay, okay. I know. Golf puts some unresolved people to sleep, poor ignorant souls, but I tell you: This, my 2009 TV golf resolution, is bound for glory.
And another thing about golf. If I get a chance to play a round or two or even thirty, I’m going to play them. Uh huh, another slam dunk. Pow!
And here’s another easy resolution. When I don’t feel like writing a column, I’m not going to write one. Another 100 percenter!
That brainstorm comes from many hours of scientific self-study. It’s led me to this conclusion: When I don’t want to do something, it’s hard to do, but then when I don’t do it, it’s easy.
From now on, I’m going to write columns only when they write themselves. When I mysteriously find myself tapping out an idea and it all just kinda happens. Voila!
Like this one. I’m obviously not even thinking while I’m doing this one.
No more working and reworking a mediocre idea into something presentable. No more Sisyphus pushing a rock up the mountain. Those huffer-and-puffer columns usually aren’t as good anyway.
So if it isn’t easy to write and fun, fun, fun--like golf, golf, golf--it’s not going to happen. I’m going to be temporarily off the radar. Yeah, I won’t be there then.
Sorry, but we’ll both be better off.
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