It must be resolution time; I can hear you groaning from here.
It sounds something like this: you hate resolutions. Resolutions are stupid, passé, cliché. You never keep them and it’s pointless to even bother making them.
Yeah right – you don’t fool me.
Why even bother trying to fight January’s annual orgy of self-improvement? It’s hardwired in most of us. Chances are, if you go back a few generations, your ancestors came to Canada or the United States after resolving to make a better life for their families. I know mine did.
And our ancestor’s legacy is our own constant urge towards self-improvement – an urge that is both the pride and the bane of the North American middle class.
Sometimes I hear people say the secret to life is to want less, to do less, to simplify, to stop trying to improve. And sometimes when I feel stressed, when the free-lance work in our crazy business is slow, I lament that I have acquired some many things, a lifestyle and expectations, to which I must tend.
And at those times the idea of a little hut somewhere in the islands, where the sun is bright and life is slow, seems almost unbearably lovely.
But deep down I don’t know if that lifestyle would suit me. Deep down I think it may be the striving on which I thrive.
It’s not that I’m not already happy – I am – so very, very happy. It’s not that I don’t count my existing blessings – in fact I listed them in a rather colorful fashion just a few months back.
It’s just that life is short and the world is big and there are so many things to do and places to go and people to meet and I feel compelled to jam in as much as possible – to gobble up enough experiences to sustain happy memories and crazy stories for those days when I’m confined to my rocker.
And after all, even if it’s wearying sometimes, isn’t the constant striving, the resolving to be stronger, faster, happier, richer, thinner what makes North America such a wonderful place to live? Yes, it’s tiring, but isn’t it infectious, this ever-present idea that things can always, will always, get better, if only we resolve to make them so?
So don’t fight it. Promise yourself that you’ll jump on the treadmill, go for a run, start playing piano, hug your kids every day or cook from scratch and then give it your best shot.
And have a busy, prosperous and happy new year!
