Life of Hardin Vol. IV, No. 1

New Year's Resolved

All my life I have heard people ask, "What are your New Year's resolutions?" I can state, to the best of my knowledge, that I have never replied to that question with a list of items I intended to improve about myself starting Jan. 1 of "X" year. However, this does not mean that I have never tried to improve myself. I have. Sometimes with success, though some would argue. Sometimes without success, as many will attest. It just has always seemed to me that Jan. 1 is a bad time to make resolutions with the goal of self-improvement.

For one thing, the principal resolution seems to be "I resolve to lose 'X' number of pounds." The program to achieve that goal is starvation, crash diets, or eating less and exercise. All of these go out the window for me at midnight. There is always a bowl of Rotel dip that needs eating at a New Year's party, and the first often calls for a second once the hour has passed.

For another thing, I've always seen New Year's resolutions as a cop out. They seem to be an excuse to put off changes, or to indulge beforehand. "I don't mind gaining 20 pounds during the holidays. I'm going to start my new work out regimen on January first!" In October: "My New Year's resolution is going to be to quit smoking, so I have to get rid of all my cartons now." In July: "I need to invite more friends over to my house." "I need to visit with my family more." "I need to learn more about 'X' subject." And I'll get right on that as soon as the New Year rolls around.

The new year is no better a time to start self-improvement that today. In fact, it's worse, because when those resolutions fail, we can wait out the next 10 months before we have to start over again.

Lucy Van Pelt (of "Peanuts" fame) often made New Year's resolutions for other people and handed them out. I will refrain from doing that, and will instead remove the beam from my own eye. (Although Paraguayan men could have this resolution: "I resolve, next Christmas Eve, to not get so drunk I can't see straight, shoot firecrackers until 3 in the morning, and wander the streets shirtless and sweaty until sometime around noon Christmas day." But they'll have to make that resolution. I won't do it for them.) Here, then, is my list of resolutions, gathered over the course of many years, not for New Year's, but for every day. The moment one is broken, it starts again.

I do hereby resolve:

To exercise regularly and eat fruits and green veggies to keep my body in a reasonably healthy physical state.
To eat Rotel and/or chocolate on occasion, when I feel like eating them, without feeling guilty about it.

To monitor myself daily for flaws and correct them.
To look for the good and the potential in the people I know.

To read a wide selection of literature for enjoyment and the expansion of my mind and vocabulary, including but not limited to the Bible, philosophy books, history books, various classics, Tarzan novels, Dashiell Hammett and other detective novels, funny papers and comic books (possibly the best expanders of vocabulary out there), and "The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits."
To not read any more Hemingway, ever.

To be irritated with myself, gripe at myself, talk to myself in the mirror, and kick myself around when I do something stupid; then immediately forget about it and go on.
To forgive mistakes in others, before they ask, as easily as I forgive myself.

To not put up with excuses or whining for more than about 60 seconds.
To help someone to no end as long as they will try.

To bend over backward to grant any reasonable request.
To flatly refuse to grant any demands.

To not fear death, seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come. (That's from "Julius Caesar" by Shakespeare. See resolution #3 above.)
To not fear life, because those that are with us are more than those who are against us (II Kings 6:8-23)

To do my best in everything, to know I've done the best I could, and not care what someone else might think about it.
To be proud of a job well done, whether done by me or someone else.

To be so funny it hurts.
To laugh with people and not at them, including myself.

To realize that twenty years from now they'll all look like molehills.

To keep my cars clean and in the best shape possible (don't laugh), to keep my clothes organized, my music and DVDs arranged and alphabetized, and to wear out all of the above plus other possessions by use rather than neglect or mistreatment.
To share rather than let people go without or let something go to waste and not be upset when someone borrows something and doesn't put it back exactly the way I would have.

To be thankful for the gifts I've been given.
To realize I am owed nothing.

To pay attention and be observant to where I am, what I am doing, why I am doing it, and who I am with.

To clean up after other people's messes as others have cleaned up after me.
To show other people how to clean up their messes and other people's messes.

To take care of my family.
To treat everyone like family.

To do my best in everything and leave plenty of unfinished business when I go.
To be ready to go at any time.

To refuse to see the attraction of "Gilmore Girls", John Mayer (though he can play a guitar. I'll give him that), cornbread dressing, turnip greens, holiday fruitcake and pan dulce (which is sort of the Paraguayan equivalent of fruitcake, but older and fermented), soccer, skeletal supermodels, Nicholas Sparks books, the designated hitter rule, Starbucks, countertop brickabrack that has to be moved before you can dust, Larry the Cable Guy, or bluetooth headsets.

To not make one of these lists next year or any other time, for that matter, since it can all be summed up anyway in two sentences:

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength," and, "Love your neighbor as yourself." (Mark 12:30-31)