Usually, the only time the word “resolution” enters my mind is at around 8:30 pm on December 31. I try to come up with a sweeping life change I will make over the next 365 days. It is always a worthwhile pursuit, like losing weight or being kind to everyone. You know the drill. By February 1, my lofty goals collide with donuts or bad drivers. I declare myself a failure and pledge to give it another go next year.
The thing is, there is no reason to wait until New Year’s Eve to lie to myself again. There is always August. It is back to school month, the perfect time to make resolutions. I did it when I was a kid. From the eve of first grade right on through the night before fall semester started in my senior year of college, I made promises to myself that I had every intention of keeping, but that were ultimately doomed to fail.
A new year – especially a new school year – is like that first blank sheet of paper in a brand-new notebook. There is so much hope for a neat and tidy year ahead. In fact, every year without fail, I even resolved to keep my notebooks in pristine condition, but by the end of September the back cover would inevitably be falling off and all I could do was wonder how I could have become such a dismal failure.
There is something so appealing about a fresh start. I don’t know why I must ruin new beginnings by setting a bunch of expectations that time has repeatedly taught me are not plausible. I don’t remember much about starting kindergarten, but I am pretty sure my only goal was survival. I just wanted to make it through the entire school day without my grandmother, “Sesame Street” and my Barbie camper. I really had to take that whole thing a day at a time. I wasn’t pressuring myself to avoid cookies after nap time or keep my crayons organized.
Maybe it really is true that All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Author Robert Fulghum broke life down to the basics in his book about those first non-scholastic lessons we learn from our very first elementary school teachers.
What if instead of pressuring ourselves to be these perfectly orderly specimens, we held ourselves to the basics? Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Clean up your own mess. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. There are more, and you will find them in Fulghum’s book.
I think there is something pretty beautiful about simply asking ourselves to live balanced lives and treat other people right. At the end of the day, what matters most won’t be our weight or organizational skills, it will all boil down to how we lived and who we loved.
I remember once hearing someone say that expectations are premeditated resentments. How true that is. It is also inspirational. Rather than putting pressure on myself, my 2023 mid-year resolution will be to hang loose. Just let life happen.
