where did the time go?!?!?

It seems lately that every time I've sat down and thought about writing here, something has come up. Meetings, deadlines, social engagements, being very sick for far too long, and now upcoming holidays over the Christmas break. So it was now or never. I had to get one last quick post in before the rapidly approaching new year begins!

I've been wanting to write about a lot of things, such as white ribbon day (did you know it was on November 25, the UN international day for the elimination of violence against women?), about the joys and pitfalls of alcohol, about what I have learned about marriage, about the daily tv travesty that is two and a half misogynists... err, i mean, two and a half men, and about my ongoing battles with my weight, my self-confidence and my budget. I'd also love to post about the hobbies and activities I've been keenly pursuing lately including getting better acquainted with photography, teaching myself new songs on the piano, and learning new recipes and culinary arts.

But in the spirit of the season, I think I'll make my last post for 2010 about those good old foibles, new years resolutions. Don't get me wrong, I actually kind of get the whole 'new year new you' thing. There's something so conceptually inviting about a new year offering a clean slate. It has a real sense of newness about it, it seems so neat and tidy, so sensible and orderly. My brain knows the 1st of January is the the day after the 31st of December, no different from the transition of any other month, and yet when I look at the calendar, it's like the 31st of December didn't exist. All I see before me is month after month of fresh, new, untouched days, weeks and months. A whole year of it.

The problem with new years resolutions is not that we make them, but that we so often make the wrong ones. Ones that we know deep down inside will be impossible to keep. You know what I'm talking about... promises of more exercise, of a new and better diet, trying harder at our jobs or relationships, losing X amount of weight or saving X amount of money. I've tried most of these at various times, often more than one at a time, and yet come February or March I realise I haven't been able to stick to it, I've failed at it, and I give up and try again the next year.

Big things like these I think are fundamentally unsuited to such a starting point. Not only are they generally very long term and life changing behaviours, but starting them needs to happen at the time when it needs to happen, not on such an arbritrary and false date. Take losing weight for example. If you decide you need to lose weight, there's no point waiting until the new year to do it. Start it the day you make the decision that you want to lose weight. Delaying it until the new year is procrastination and is only setting you up for failure. Or another example might be spending more time with your partner. If you think you don't spend enough time with your partner, then the day you realise that is the day you should act. Why wait?!?!

So I'm not making any new years resolutions this year. I love the neatness of them, but I also realised this year during my attempt to rediscover my give-a-shit that if you want to change something, then it is best to just act on it then and there. Do whatever you can in that moment to set the new train in motion. There's no point predicating such important decisions on a false and arbitrary timeframe. Your whole life, never mind just one year, is in front of you, and every day is day one.

Carpe Diem! Seize the day! Or as that famous multi-national sweat-shop dependent Fortune 500 bloated corporation famously says: Just Do It!