My opinion of New Year’s Resolutions is on par with Douglas Adams’ stance on deadlines. It’s not that I think I’m perfect. It’s that I hate setting myself up for failure.
Look. We’re all flawed, imperfect individuals. Some of us more than others, granted. Over time, we improve. This is often not through a groundswell of intentional effort, but because Life is like an older brother who shoves you into the deep end of the pool and cackles maniacally while you flail. You swim, or you drown. You fall, and your only choices are to lie flat on your face or push yourself up. That’s how we grow. The hard way. Trial and error.
That’s why I didn’t make any resolutions for the New Year. But then I realized I needed a topic for a blog post, so here we are. Rather than write anything heartfelt and make a commitment that might require, you know, work, I’ve set a low bar for myself. Below are five resolutions that I’m damn sure I can keep for the duration of 2012.
1. Stop referring to America as “The Leader of the Free World”. Gods, I hate that expression. I hate it even more when I find myself using it. DAMN YOU, CULTURAL CONDITIONING! Yes, we Americans live in a relatively free country. Mind you, between NDAA, SOPA, and the violent repression of peaceful protest, we’re losing ground rapidly. But freedom runs rampant in the world. The Americas are pretty free. Europe is almost completely free. (I’m looking at YOU, Turkey!) Africa, the Middle East, Asia…well, let’s just say there are positive trends. It’s ludicrous to christen ourselves the free world’s leaders based largely upon our capacity to blow lesser nations to Kingdom Come.
2. Stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.
3. Read more graphic novels. Because we all should, dammit. Sequential art (that’s the word we comics fans use for “comics” when we’re striving to sound like educated consumers of The New Yorker instead of dorkbags) is its own art form, a playful dance between words and pictures. Books by comics impresarios such as Scott McCloud (Understanding Comics) and Will Eisner (Comics and Sequential Art) make clear just how much is involved in the visual construction of a story, and how hard it is to do it well.
While my tastes generally fall inside the genre “Kick-Ass Superwomen with Potty Mouths”, I’m trying to expand my reading this year to include more intimate and personal titles. Currently I’m reading Stitches, David Small’s true tale of growing up with parents who couldn’t be bothered to tell their son that he had cancer.
4. Stop making resolutions. No, really. This is it. The Final Five, as it were. After this, I’m breaking the resolutions habit until January 1st, 2013, at which time I can re-resolve while technically having abstained for 2012. I love loopholes.
5. Be a Thoroughly Terrible Buddhist. 2011 was both my best year as a practitioner of Buddhism as well as my worst. I meditated more, and more consistently, than I ever have in my life. I was also angry, I lashed out, I stopped practicing at critical (and eventually disastrous) times, and I spent too much time blaming others for problems of my own invention.
All in all, an excellent year.
I’ll admit, I was originally drawn to Buddhism by the fantasy of becoming a perfectly enlightened human being. But being human isn’t about being perfect. It’s about facing your imperfection. It’s looking dead straight into your soul’s headlights and remaining still, when every cellular organism wiggling through your body is screaming at you to jump away. Thanks to Buddhism, I’m slightly less thoroughly terrible at that. With any luck, by the end of 2012, I’ll be slightly less thoroughly terrible than I am now.
I fell down a lot in 2011. But I got back up. Fall. Stand. Rinse. Repeat.
Happy New Year.
