Niagara Gazette — As we near the final countdown of January 2013, I’d like each of us to take a moment to reflect on the last few weeks and think about how much we’ve changed since those cold, dark days in December.
Surely many of us are standing in front of our recently organized closets in the laundry room we recently converted to a home office, looking into the mirror we finally took off of the two shoe boxes it was standing on top of and hung from the door, admiring our emerging six-pack abs. It feels great doesn’t it?
What’s that? You don’t have emerging six-pack abs? You haven’t made any progress in your pile of clothes to functional home office conversion? What about your new year’s resolutions? You swore on Dick Clark, did that mean nothing to you!?
For those of us who are trying to find the scrap of paper we wrote our resolutions on (full disclosure: I didn’t even make any resolutions this year), take heart, all is not lost. Many of you will soon find out that you are not alone, I’d venture to say that by this time in February no one you know will be talking about how their resolution to do more juice cleanses has changed their lives. If anything, by giving up now you are ahead of the curve, excelling even.
Some people will try to passive aggressively put you down for not “having goals” or “striving to better yourself,” but those people are wrong. By deciding not to change you’re making a statement; telling the world that you’re perfect just the way you are, a unique flower whose decision to eat less vegetables and organize your clothes in two piles on the floor (“clean” and “clean enough”) just reaffirms your status as special. Isn’t this the lesson we’ve been taught our whole lives through children’s movies?
For those of you who spend your evenings complaining about the fair-weather runners taking up all of the good machines in the gym as they try (and eventually fail) to “get healthy” this year, take a few deep breaths. These people are trying, and remember that life is like a dance floor, no one is judging you as long as you give your all.
Eventually these people will tire themselves out and again, much like on the dance floor, they’ll retire to the (smoothie) bar and eventually go home. Once that happens you can revel in how perfect you are and have no need to change. If I’m remembering the lesson of “Remember the Titans” correctly, we’re not supposed to let the ignorance of others affect our own quests for greatness. In this case the ignorance is related to proper gym etiquette and technique instead of racism, but the heart of the message is the same.
So much of the appeal of the New Year is attached to the idea of fresh starts, the feeling that with the purchase of a new calendar we are buying a fresh start on our lives. “Don’t you smoke cigarettes?” No, that was the 2012 you; the 2013 you is into yoga. When it comes down to it, a new calendar is still just a calendar, and the version of you that cleaned behind your refrigerator today is the same you that dropped a bagel behind it last year.
As we move forward we shouldn’t lose hope. While no one should try to reinvent the calendar there’s always an opportunity to make it a “puppies in hats” calendar and while it’s not a total reinvention it’s just a little better than the one we had before.
Vincent Davis II is a Cornell graduate, DJ, and market development specialist in the IT industry. He can be contacted at vincedavis06@gmail.com
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