Playing to Your Weakness

It's New Year's Eve. Maybe I should wait till tomorrow to think about resolutions, but I'm not doing much else at the moment.

Are there more futile traditions than the New Year's Resolution? How many have you kept in your life? In previous years, I tried. I would make a deeply meaningful resolution, often keeping it to myself, but really being earnest about it. Never meant squat. Think about it, you pledge to wipe out this deeply rooted part of yourself, to grind smooth some groove you've been wearing into yourself for your whole life. Starting this arbitrary day. Talk about built to fail.

I closely observed an exception in 2005. My wife resolved to get more organized, and she did. She didn't become a paragon of order, but she made real progress, dragging me part of the way with her. Credit given where it is due.

I've given up on this approach for myself. I had given up last year, and so I made a trivial, fun resolution. Cause you think you could do that. I resolved to remember jokes. I don't remember jokes. I hear a joke, I laugh or don't, and its gone. I succeeded for maybe 3 months. I had like tripled my cache of jokes. By this December 31st, I've forgotten them all. I didn't resolve to save the world or fix my greatest flaw, just get better at something I suck at. Again, planned to fail.

So I'm working on a new strategy for this year. I have a recent success as a model. I decided it wouldn't hurt me to dress a little more nicely on occasion. I can decide that, but the groove, the habit, the vision of I have of who I am, it doesn't' give up easy. So I played dirty.

I have this pattern. I buy two pairs of jeans. I wear one of them almost every day until one or both wear out. I buy two pairs of jeans. Repeat. A few months ago it was time to buy two pairs of jeans again. I bought one pair of jeans, and one pair of kakis. One moment of strength set me up for months of virtue. I hate to shop. I'm always behind on laundry. I won't go buy another pair of pants till one wears out, and I won't do laundry often enough to keep clean alternatives to the kakis. I'm stuck. I wear them once or twice a week. I played to weakness, instead of relying on strength.

You see where I'm going. I'm trying to devise New Year's Resolutions based on this strategy. If suitable, I'll share them with you, once I've dreamed them up.