On New Year's resolutions...

I'm sitting here on January 2nd thinking about New Year's resolutions. What can I say? I procrastinate.

Anyway, I typically don't make resolutions unless they are ridiculous and nearly impossible to achieve. That way I can scrap them without damaging my already fragile self-esteem. Brilliant, right?

For example, one year my resolution was to join a Mummer's Band and march in the next Mummer's Parade. Technically not impossible, but definitely ridiculous because I can't stand the Mummers. That was one resolution that was easily jettisoned. Another year, I vowed to give up chocolate.  Oh, please.

So why, you ask, do I bother to make resolutions I know I can't keep? Ones I know I'm going to break almost immediately?

I guess I get caught up in the whole excitement of change. The "Be who you want to be (or who you think you should want to be), not who you are" thing. The More Interesting, Thinner, Kinder, Prettier, More Fabulous Me. And then I realize I should like who I am, in spite of myself. (Think Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett.)

Not that I should always be completely satisfied with myself, but that change should come from true self-reflection and a genuine desire to be a better person, not because the calendar flipped to the next year. Not because everybody else is doing it.

So this year I resolve to take stock in who I am every day (or at least once a week) and see what small changes I can make to be a truly better, kinder, happier person.

Either that, or I will learn how to ride miniature ponies sidesaddle.