UnResolution Resolutions

It’s mid-December as I write, and I’m betting that a lot of us are thinking about the 12 days of Christmas or 8 days of Hanukah or 7 days of Kwanzaa. Maybe you’re just counting down the days until your job breaks for the holiday season, but I’m already thinking ahead to the 365 days of the New Year. This past year has had more than a few challenging moments, so I’m ready to dive head first into a brand new year. Ready for a new job, a new home, a new life, a new me! So just how does that work?

For many years, I was a resolutions junkie. I’d make lists of goals, categorize them, outline them, you name it. I made resolutions for the Jewish New Year in September and the secular New Year in January. I even had my kids make resolutions. Oh, Mom! I’m sure we all kept some of them, but I’m not so sure it was because we declared them as our official New Year Resolutions. It got to be exhausting. Eventually, I began to rebel. One year I made no resolutions at all (or rather, I didn’t write any down, so they didn’t count). Another year my only resolution was to have more fun. Then I went through a house fire and spent the rest of the year rebuilding, so that didn’t work out too well.

Then I stumbled across the term “UnResolutions.” This came about as I was reading a collection of humorous essays by Lisa Scottoline (aka a very successful mystery writer). She writes that “everybody makes resolutions for the New Year, i.e., things they don’t like about themselves and need to change” (Scottoline 120). Why would we do that? It’s so negative! Instead, she made a list of the things she had been doing during the year that made her happy. She resolved to keep doing those things, like watching her favorite movies over and over again or keeping her car clean or loving, talking, and kissing all her pets. What a concept! Focus on the happy stuff!

Here are some UnResolutions I’ve made:

I resolve to continue minimizing, or curating, all areas of my life.
I resolve to continue walking briskly for at least 30 minutes every weekday.
I resolve to continue reducing my sugar intake.
I resolve to continue improving my foreign language skills.
I resolve to continue getting involved in my new(ish) city.

OK, you get the idea. Instead of focusing so much on the usual resolutions of losing weight, exercising more, stopping smoking, or saving money, why don’t we all focus on what we’re doing right, what makes us happy, and resolve to keep on doing it. What are your UnResolutions?