Sticks and Stones

I've gone to the gym every day since we got back from break and have been sticking to the lettuce and 100 calorie pack diet I put myself on. I also stopped swearing and have been less offensive in general. My credit card is no longer my go-to for instant gratification and I've started this new fangled thing called "budgeting."If any single one of those sentences were true, life would be peachy. Unfortunately, it's February, and you know what that means: it's time to, if you haven't already, abandon your New Year's resolutions.

Every year I'm going to lose roughly 700 pounds and curb my shopping addiction of equal proportions, but right around February it occurs to me: why am I making myself miserable to make myself "happy?" I'm not happy obsessing over all of the things I think I should be and I'm not happy trying to live up to the bogus expectations I set for myself. I'm certainly not happy feeling the enormous pressure of having to change different aspects of myself that I deem "ready for change" just because it's the en vogue resolution to have.

We all have flaws, but don't they make us uniquely "us?" Self improvement and personal betterment is an everyday thing, not just something we contrive at midnight in order feel content with the ball dropping on another year of our lives.

Obviously, setting goals is one thing, but driving yourself insane and setting yourself up for failure is a whole other. Our resolutions aren't these magic things that pop into our heads out of nowhere. They do originate from some good intention at first, but somehow they just manifest themselves into this completely unachievable entity that we have no control over. We make choices, though, every single day of our lives. It's these choices that steer us towards achieving our ambitions. They are gradual, and they are certainly not going to alter your life by 7 p.m. on New Year's Day.

So as I sat in my car in the parking lot of Solomon Pond Mall this past Sunday, dreading going to work and having an anxiety attack to my Mum on the phone over all the things I hadn't completed (ranging from starting this very column to the only thing I did finish this weekend: a Moe's burrito), I was literally at square one. It was the last day of January and I hadn't done one thing I intended to. Pretty much nothing was going my way.

"Look at each individual task completed as a small achievement," my mum said. She's a smart cookie. Maybe my resolution should have been listening to her more. But I digress. She told me I look too hard at my endless lists instead of realizing all the things I actually am doing.

They are all baby steps of course. We had to start small. I brushed my teeth today, check. I (evidently) finally wrote this column, check. I was a decent human being even when the customer at work was so wrong, check. Really though, we don't give ourselves enough credit for all that we do day to day as students, family members, friends and humans. Just living is exhausting, so why not give ourselves a pat on the back more often for just getting through the day?

Maybe if more resolutions were to be a productive student or a loving family member, we'd be more apt to stick to them. Maybe if they focused on the realistic, the everyday, they would be remotely attainable. Our so-called flaws may not even be flaws. Everything we always want to fix is just the kind of stuff that pushes us to succeed in the first place. In that case, is it such a bad thing? Or will baby steps do the trick for those types of problems too?

It's not really what you do; it's how you go about doing it. Make some decisions. Choose to be better, but don't choose to sandbag yourself from the get go. I don't need be a real adult with a real budget right away. I'm okay with dropping an accidental cuss, especially when it's in regard to how good the chocolate cake I am not supposed to be eating is. For me, healthy is better than starving and "shucks" is not and never will be an option. I'm going to black out shopping and walk out with a bag or two, just in moderation.

Don't think that you can't progress for the better, but realize your own limitations. Realize it takes time. And certainly do not think that come 2011, your crazy, disillusioned self won't try to do it all again. For now, let the ball squish 2009 and walk away ready to be a better you, not someone you're trying to be.