Happy New Year!

Ah, the New Year.  That opportunity to look back and reflect on the year just passed, take stock, and look towards the upcoming one with Hope and Optimism.  Unless you are someone who voted for Harris in 2024, in which case, that Hope and Optimism is tinged with Fear and Loathing and wondering if you’ll survive until the Mid-terms, which are 302 days, 8 hours, and 20 minutes, and 10 seconds away, but who’s counting.

The New Year is that chance to hit the reset button on anything that you feel you could improve about yourself.  That reset takes the form of …clouds part, heavenly light pours forth, and the Angelic Host sing… The New Year’s Resolution. 

Also known as The Thing I Say I Am Going To Do, But Quickly Forget About Or Outright Abandon Within Two Weeks.

The studies show, because of course there’s a study on this, what isn’t there a study on, that 30-45% of Americans make New Year’s Resolutions.  About the same number of people who actually like spinach on their pizza.

And apparently, younger adults (18-29) are significantly more likely to make resolutions (around 49%) vs. those 50 and older (around 21%).  That’s because we oldsters have been around long enough to know better.

What do we know better? That it’s pretty much a wasted effort.  You start out with high hopes, you have at it for a period of time, but then, poof.  Resolution? What resolution? That chocolate cake is calling my name and I am going to eat it.  The gym? It’s 54 degrees below freezing, I can’t go out in that.  It’s Friday night, the week was long and hard, I am having that glass of wine.  Dry what? January? Dry is what you do after you wash dishes or do laundry.  Drink is what you do after a long, hard week.

That’s why the success rate, despite that initial optimism, of New Year’s Resolutions is only 8-9%.  Don’t shoot the messenger.  Just sharing what the survey said.  Like what Steve Harvey does on The Family Feud. 

As we see, the majority of us do not make New Year’s Resolutions. Roughly 55-70%. Of course, the study on this has some enlightening data. 

The main reason people don’t make them?  Steve? Survey says….56% don’t like to make them.  Gosh. Wow. Thunderbolt of Insight here.  I wonder who did this study and how much they spent. 

What is missing from this survey is a follow up question for those 56% who said they don’t like to make resolutions.  Why? Why don’t you like to make them? Are they too hard to keep? If so, why are they too hard to keep? Are the goals you set too big? Too ambitious? Do you not need to make them because you already work each and every day to be a better person? Hmm. Looks like we’ll never know.

Next up, at 12% are those who say they break them too easily.  There you go.  This must be the oldsters.  The ones who have been through this enough to know.  Nah. Why bother.  I am just going to break it anyway.  Not sure what this says about this group.  They know they could use some improving in some area, but, let’s not even bother, because I don’t have the determination to stick with it.  Note, they could make that their next resolution: at least try.

But at least this group has some self-awareness. And not a complete lack of imagination or insight into one’s self. 

That describes the 9% who say they don’t make resolutions because they can’t think of anything.  Really? Not a thing? Not one little thing you could come up with to improve yourself? I think there’s a term to describe that condition and it’s called Donald Tr*mp, er, sorry, narcissism. Perhaps they have never heard the expression that the unexamined life is not worth living.

And then, rounding out the reasons for not making resolutions (aside from a miscellaneous bucket of 17%), are the 6% who simply forgot.  Yeah.  Might be a nugget of insight for you in that one. Maybe this group’s next resolution could be: focus.

Me? I’m with the majority on this one. I gave up making New Year’s Resolutions awhile ago.  Like Anderson Cooper said when he was co- hosting CNN’s New Year’s Celebration with Andy Cohen, or AC squared as my niece referred to them as, I try to live my life as a daily continuous self-improvement.  It is a daily journey and it is measured over the long-term.  And for sure, some days are better than others.  But the beauty of a daily journey, is each day you can start anew. It’s not predicated upon some ‘fabricated line of demarcation’ (to borrow from Craig D. Lounsbrough).

Hmmm.  Guess that is a resolution after all, huh? One day at a time.

Cheers! And Happy New Year to you all!

PS: Ok, I do have another resolution.  Successfully navigate Square Space’s customer service to fix whatever the glitch is that is not uploading my weekly posts! Wish me luck! 😂