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!
