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Resolute about Resolutions


 Resolution, Resolution, Resolution! It’s that mid-holiday period when people feel the need to come up with a resolution for the new year. This year they’ll eat healthier, read more books, spend more family time, be savvier with finances, not wear their pajamas in public, shoplift less, stop selling organs on the black market, etc. It’s all a head game.

Every day is an opportunity to make a change, but for some reason we like to make an official declaration on January 1. We’re given 365 days to decide what we need to work on and it has to begin after the ball drops.

A friend said she was eliminating carbs in 2024. In February she accidentally ate a crouton. The tiny, dried piece of bread sent her into a shame spiral. In despair, she opened a Door Dash account and ordered Auntie Anne’s, Cinnabon, Panera Bread, Dunkin and Crumbl cookies.

Her resolution for 2025 is to lose 100 pounds, and once again, cut out carbs. Compounding resolutions is never a good trend. Stick to one thing. By mid-year you’re going to forget what they were anyway.

Never hold yourself to the “I’ll be a better person” resolution. Bob, a neighbor, said he was going to be less critical of others and open to taking constructive criticism. I told him it would be refreshing for him to be less negative. Bob said I must have cotton in my big ears because he said critical not negative, and who did I think I was Dr. Phil? His 2025 is off to a good start.

Don’t sell the farm if you’re still planting seeds in the dirt. No one’s expecting you to make some big pronouncement for the year. Unless you’ve cured cancer or seen Dolly Parton without a wig. Don’t be so hard on yourself.

It can get messy turning over a new leaf. Have you ever turned over a leaf in the woods? There’s usually a slimy bug underneath the surface. Keep your creepy crawlers to yourself.

One of the top resolutions is to join a gym and get in shape. After January 1, gyms are filled with new members in brand new workout clothes. Their Nikes are just out of the box and their motivation is full speed ahead. After a few muscle aching workouts on machines sweat-coated from the previous drippy Nautilus newbie, the new you in the new year doesn’t seem so important.

When the epiphany occurs that you’ve given up pop tarts, pizza and Pringles for pumping iron, planks and Pilates, the Nikes disappear somewhere under the bed with the dust bunnies. Your $125 Lululemon joggers become abstract art on the closet floor. The gym you joined becomes a wasteland of gym bunnies left to free range in the land of Zumba.

I made a thoughtless decision to tread into resolution territory a decade ago. I wanted to firm up my jelly into jam. Hiring a personal trainer at the gym would transform me into centerfold material. Look out for the Spring Edition of Cautiously Optimistic Men’s Health.

I thought a personal trainer would setup the machines, count the reps and tell me how amazing I was doing between each groan. My experience wasn’t personal—only mildly cordial. How much work was I expected to do? She’d show me the exercise and then stand back. I was waiting for a little help with the weights. Did I have to put in all the effort? Do a squat for me. I learn by watching—not sweating.

It was like hiring an executive assistant who didn’t answer the phone. I had an audience of one and she was a heckler. “You can do more reps than that,” she’d bark. If I could have moved my muscles more, I’d have pushed myself off the bench and body slammed her. Hobbling to my car each evening, I resolved a public gym was not for me.

Not only was the trainer not my cup of Gatorade, the rest of the gym scene was filled with too many endorphins and not enough humility. The men’s locker room was filled with vain dudes in tiny towels showing off their worked-out pecs like Tarzan of the Concrete Jungle, and the older men sauntered around naked while gravity pulled their skin toward the equator.

I handed in my membership card after an elderly guy bent over and a can of talcum powder fell out of one of his many rolls. My corneas peeling off my eyes certainly superseded any fitness resolution.

That experience taught me to make each new year a resolution free-zone. If you have to run around on December 31, telling everyone to hold you to account if you don’t follow through on your life-changing resolution—you really don’t want to do it anyway. Don’t worry yourself and create anxiety.

As 2025 staggers in with an extra dirty martini in hand, there will be enough anxiety to go around. An inauguration looms like Dracula outside your window. Be resolute this year and get rid of the resolutions.

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