Wishful Thinking

As I was sitting, pondering life this past week and waiting for the true meaning of the holidays to finally hit me, I casually mentioned to my love muffin and in-8-short-months teenager that I was formulating what my New Year resolutions might be.  My betrothed smiled politely, nodded and said “that’s nice, honey”.  He has been through this exercise 17 New Years before with me.  Although appearing supportive, he seems hesitant to embrace my commitment to whatever the current resolution is that I am attempting.  This reaction is understandable; my batting average of seeing a resolution to fruition is about .200.

My child, on the other hand, was ecstatic and thrilled to be of any service to guide me to my goals (he must want something to be so enthusiastic to help).  That is, until he asked me the “meaning” of a New Year’s resolution.  He is the analytic type where he desires more information, needs deeper understanding and will not accept a simple response (my friends warned me and said it would be this way if I insisted on having a child with an engineer, but I couldn’t resist my love muffins’ advances).

I fumbled around for a good answer to what a New Year’s resolution may be.  But I heard myself defining it by actions; “lose 30 pounds”, “be a better listener”, “read more books”, “try something daring and exciting”, “clean closets”.  These comebacks were not going to fly with him, he wanted/needed more to satisfy his curiosity.  I, of course, being the ever-diligent wife of a computer nerd went straight to Google for help.  What I found was “academic” and wasn’t much help in explaining our modern interpretation: The tradition of the New Year's Resolution goes all the way back to 153 B.C. Janus, a mythical king of early Rome who was placed at the head of the calendar.  With two faces, Janus could look back on past events and forward to the future. Janus became the ancient symbol for resolutions and many Romans looked for forgiveness from their enemies and also exchanged gifts before the beginning of each year.  The early, most popular resolution was to return borrowed farm equipment.

Merriam-Webster didn’t shed much light on the basic meaning of resolution, except to link it with resolve and mending ones ways.  The implication here is that we have been doing something bad/wrong/incorrectly in the past and we must amend/modify/adjust or face the consequences.  I would think this would fall in the common sense area and should be done much more regularly than once a year; learn from the mistake and move forward.  Why carry baggage from last year forward? Who wants to be reminded of a flaw or worse, a collapse, in their system?

Maybe the lack of true definition of what a resolution really is might be the rationale for its constant failure.  If we changed how we looked at things, transforming resolutions (pessimistic) to dreams, desires, or wishful thinking (optimistic), there may be a higher rate of success.  This is a plan I can get my arms around, find a deeper meaning and explain it to my child without stuttering about.  I may even find that I can fulfill a complete resolution this year… what a concept.

Set yourself free!  After returning that borrowed farm equipment, set forth for yourself a much more gratifying (and attainable) resolution and may all your wishes come true for 2006.

Happy New Year!

Cynthia A. McClelland, curious observer of the obvious with interpretations of the oddities of daily life.  Mother, wife and lover of the furry, resides in the north Lake Tahoe area.

Cynthia A. McClelland © 2003-