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DEPARTMENTS DECEMBER 2009

Robotham—The Ritual We Love To Hate

Many folks I know think New Year’s resolutions represent an exercise in futility. So why do some of us keep making them?

Music In You
Bookmark and Share by Tom Robotham

 

How do you feel about New Year’s Resolutions? When I posed that question to a number of friends recently, the response was overwhelmingly negative.

“I tend to equate New Year’s Resolutions with diets, and the people who make them with those who go on diets,” says retired Virginia Wesleyan professor Rick Hite in a typical response. “The resolve is usually short-lived.”
Mitch Kirsner, owner of Fantasy Records in Newport News, echoes the sentiment. “I resolve to not make any more resolutions I’m unlikely to keep,” he told me in a Facebook post.

Apparently, they’re in the majority—not only here in Hampton Roads but across the country. According to several surveys I found on the internet, nearly 60 percent of all American adults have given up on resolutions entirely, largely because they don’t want to set themselves up for failure. Their attitude seems well founded. The aforementioned surveys also indicate that among those who do make resolutions, 25 percent give up within a week, and 54 percent fail within six months.

In spite of these realities, a substantial minority of the people I talked to continue to make resolutions. One reason, they suggest, is that even if they fall short, the resolutions help them move toward their goals.

Marketing consultant Roslyn Houston is a case in point. Last year, she pledged to read a book a week. “The goal turned out to be way too aggressive,” she says, “but I think it encouraged me to read books throughout the year, at whatever pace my life allowed.”
Jen St. Clair feels the same way. As manager of the Five Point Farm Market in Norfolk, she is deeply committed to the goal of teaching people to change their eating habits, both for their individual benefit and for the good of the environment. She’s been making steady progress but wants to keep reaching for her ideal. “I resolve to eat more of a raw diet,” she says. “I have to practice it more fully before I can teach it.”
Other folks told me they still like resolutions but prefer to make them at other times of the year.

Erin Kiley, a poet and adjunct instructor at ODU, wrote in response to my question that she thinks of the new school year as a time for fresh starts. “I’ve been in school for so long,” she says, “that September is when my New Year begins.”

Meanwhile, Jennifer Coradi, private events director at Greenbrier Country Club, prefers making resolutions on her birthday. “They always stick,” she says. “I work very hard to make sure they are not vain or materialistic but involve a single act to better my soul.”

Each of these comments reflects the wisdom I’ve seen in virtually every advice column I’ve read on the subject over the years: If you’re going to make resolutions, stick to one or two.

But if you’re an inveterate resolution-maker like me, that can be difficult. Indeed, year after year, I tend to make at least a dozen. Among those on my list this year: Finish writing one of my books (I’m working on several); practice guitar every day; train at my martial arts school three to five days a week; visit the places I love more frequently (e.g., Ocracoke, New York City and the Blue Ridge Mountains); keep my apartment clean and organized; meditate daily; and improve my diet (i.e., face the fact that while Guinness may be a meal in itself, it’s not a very balanced one).

As a reality check, I went back to last year’s list, which I dutifully recorded in my journal. Among the items on the list: Finish writing one of my books; practice guitar every day; train at my martial arts school three to five days a week ... Well, you get the idea.

Reflecting on this, I’m reminded of the old saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Perhaps I am nuts. Or perhaps, as a kind friend remarked the other night, my hope simply springs eternal.

Either way, I keep at it. Why?

Well, for one thing, I agree with Roslyn Houston. I know that I will likely fall short of my goals, but resetting them helps me continue moving forward. Indeed, as I look back on 2009, I’m comforted by the fact that I’ve made some progress in a number of these areas—my messy apartment and questionable diet notwithstanding.

Moreover, it seems to me that making resolutions is a way of reassessing what truly matters to us. My resolutions reflect life-goals that I continually revisit. The New Year, in other words—with all of its cultural symbolism—presents just one more opportunity to reassess the quality of my life. (Like Coradi and Kiley respectively, I also tend to revisit these goals on my birthday and at the beginning of the academic year.)

So where does this leave you?

If you haven’t made New Year’s Resolutions in some time, maybe you should revisit the ritual in 2010. You never know where it’ll lead.

On the other hand, if you’re afraid of failure, you might take the advice of an acquaintance I spoke to at the Taphouse in Ghent the other night. “I’m going to make a resolution I know I can keep,” he said. “I resolve NOT to take up jogging.”

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