A New Year

New Year’s Resolutions

I’ve often contemplated making New Year’s resolutions. A promise to bring in the New Year. What shall it be? Ah, yes! Lose weight. Well, while I do indeed need to drop some excessive pounds, especially given my penchant for heart attacks, I don’t intend to make an oath saying I will do so simply because of the change of calendar. I fully intend to return to yoga classes and stop eating all of this God-forsaken candy. But as far as making a promise? Nah. I know myself far too well. If I don’t adhere to the strict regimen of diet and exercise, then I will suffer another bruise to my psyche. But I’m an author! And bruised psyches is what we all (authors, artists and so forth), experience when sales are down or somebody criticizes your work after putting so many long hours into the act of creation. I wonder if God feels that way when somebody says, “I hate my life!” or “life sucks!”? Does he or she or it have an ego? Does he take it personally? Or does he take it like the Dude from The Big Lebowski and say, “Yeah, well ya know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.”  I’m speaking as if I’m a religious person. I’m not…at least not in the traditional Western sense. I’m not an atheist, nor am I agnostic; I just don’t follow a certain creed. I believe there is something more than what we consciously know. I’ve felt the death of a loved one though nobody told me they died; known things before they’ve happened which has saved injury or worse. There’s more but people really don’t like having their beliefs challenged. So whether these incidents are psychic phenomena or Holy interventions, I have no idea and will not pretend to know. I just know that there is more than what we know. I have faith, but not for faith's sake.

[BTP] Back to point. New Year’s resolutions. Ah what the hell. I’ll make one or two of those resolutions.

First—If I should see the first day of the year I resolve to take care of myself a little better. Because, as I previously alluded to, there’s no guarantee there is anything after this existence.

Second—I resolve to understand that learning to forgive others for wrongs against you is really freeing yourself of the chains of anger. Those chains will lead to resentment and then to worse, so best to try and cast them off. I won’t pretend to forget, that’s impossible, I just gotta remember that people F-up sometimes.

Third—I resolve to try to see myself as my dog sees me. He doesn’t care if I sell 50 books or 50,000, he’s happy to see me no matter what. Gaining someone’s love and trust, even from a different species, is enough success for a lifetime.

Fourth—Regardless of the above resolution, I gotta eat and feed my dog so I resolve to keep plugging away and try to make a living at this writing gig.

Fifth—I resolve to no longer resolve. I want to solve a problem correctly the first time so I don’t have to go back and resolve it.

I’m going to call it right there. No more of these resolutions this year. So all seriousness aside, if you made it this far down the page, thank you for reading. And don’t forget to check out that link at the top right of this blog and pick up your copy of RISE OF THE PENGUINS so I can feed my dog. Have a New Year worth having!