Resolutions, More Or Less

copyright©2010TWMcDermott

I read somewhere a long time ago that the two worst times to make resolutions are New Year's Day and a birthday. Research had shown that these were the times, when you were least likely to make sound judgements, due to the euphoria or despondency surrounding one or both dates.

I liked this idea so much, I immediately resolved not to make resolutions at all, on any day. Consequently, I have never failed to lose that fifteen pounds, save that extra ten thousand, climb Kilimanjaro, or run in any marathons. Despite this lapse, I remain amazingly, some might suggest naively, content.

Thus, I was perplexed, to say the least, when an enthusiastic fan requested to see my list of New Year's Resolutions for 2011. Ever curious, and throwing caution and personal history to the winds, I succumbed to the request and developed what I would call New Year's Aspirations:

1. To impose my own personal tax reform by overcoming all temptations to engage in conversation regarding any form of tax: flat, high, low, income, sales, VAT, progressive, regressive, delinquent, school, property or the aptly named sewer.

2. To never again eat in a restaurant that has no oven in its kitchen, and to refrain from ordering anything on a menu with rose petals in it.

3. To install that electric fence around the file marked "Real Estate."

4. To watch at least one TV show on an actual TV, at its regularly scheduled time, with commercials, without putting it on hold, or making any pretense whatsoever that it is a depiction of reality.

5. To sit back and enjoy the fact that Metro North is able to spend untold millions doing many things to the local station, which had little or no need of doing, and wishing that we'd buy more trains instead. Silly thoughts.

6. To meet fewer people who have written a memoir, are currently writing one, or who are contemplating paying someone to write one for them.


7. To no longer lie awake at night wondering why people merrily part with $50,000 for a year of essentially part-time study in a premium-brand college, while weeping and wailing uncontrollably about their $5,000 local school tax.

8. To overcome any temptation to curate anything, or to be curated.

9. To quit worrying why almost all start-ups never do.


10. To simply accept the rise of The Kardashians and not worry about its meaning. Same for the Karzais.

Bonus. To remind myself why I ceased making resolutions in the first place and to embrace and love my fans while distancing myself from some of their risky advice.

Ed Note: A slightly different version of this post ran in the 1/17/10 print and online edition of The Rye (NY) Record: http://www.ryerecord.com/ , Page A17, where the author is a regular columnist, and as some few brave and wise souls might say, humorist. Please try to remain calm while navigating the paper's "unusual" online system. It is, apparently, state of the art, but only if that state's capital is Albany.