On the night of December 31, 2010 I sat at The Bachelor Palace alone…except for Rocco….gently weeping and asking God to send me somebody to relieve the loneliness & lift the gloom. I’ve never told anyone that, and I’m not sure why I have decided to be so revelatory now. Maybe I have finally realized I have nothing at all to lose. It is certainly not to elicit any level of sympathy, but more to illustrate a point.
One year later I did not reach quite the same level of despair, although it was tempting since God had not yet answered my plea. I’ve set aside the emotion and become more contemplative, not only of my situation, but also about the world at large and this thing we call a “new” year.
I have grown to detest New Year’s Eve. There are two kinds of people to whom the event is targeted. The first type is the party animal. We all know these individuals. Some of us have been these individuals. They will happily use any excuse to “go out” and “party”, usually consuming copious amounts of alcohol in the process. Please understand that I am not being critical. Like I said, once upon a time I fit into this category like a glove. Sometimes I wish that I was still a party animal because life would be a lot more fun and much less solitary. The lifestyle of the party animal is also 
perfect for New Year’s Eve because their charismatic aura usually means they have lots of friends so their phone rings off the hook with invitations to all manner of social gatherings. The second target audience of New Year’s Eve are couples. Whether they are still trying to hang with the 20-somethings at the bar or have evolved into attending a fun little get together with friends complete with finger food and board games, it’s all about being with the one you love…or loving the one you’re with (Where are Crosby, Stills, & Nash when we need them??). And then of course those couples eventually have children so even if they stay in they’re usually doing something fun.
Unfortunately for me I am Choice C…none of the above. I’m single, have no children, don’t really drink or “party”, and even though I feel like I’m a nice person my phone n-e-v-e-r rings and I am never invited to or included in anything. I’m the person that will someday die alone in my apartment and no one will notice for several days until the stench becomes overwhelming. I am invisible and disconnected from society, which to some degree is probably my own fault but is largely a mystery…atleast it is to me. To be honest this relative anonymity doesn’t really bother me most of the time. But on New Year’s Eve it is gut wrenching. I’m not sure why kissing someone at midnight is a tradition…I just know that it is depressing not to have anyone to kiss.
Now once we get past that whole New Year’s Eve thing I’m okay, but I still find the concept of a new year intriguing. After all, January 1st is just some arbitrary day that was decided upon a couple thousand years ago by the Romans. January is named for Janus, the Roman god of gates, doors, and 
beginnings, of beginnings & endings and transitions. Janus supposedly had two faces…one looking forward and one looking back. Mythology is undoubtedly fascinating, and this story in particular is kind of cool. But let’s be honest…there is usually not one bit of difference between 11:59pm on December 31st and 12:01am on January 1st. There isn’t some bolt of lightning that shoots down from the heavens erasing all our worries, mistakes, & illnesses and magically making our lives perfect. But we do tend to gravitate toward that notion, imagining that magical bolt of cleansing lightning to be real.
Human beings love the idea of redemption. We embrace the thought of starting over with a clean slate. Folks happily latch onto the thought that the next 365 days are going to be better, happier, healthier, and more prosperous than the previous 12 months. Lots of people make resolutions, deciding with dogged determination that now is when they are going to lose weight, quit smoking, learn a new skill, or change some other aspect of their life. They weren’t interested in making such transformations in April, August, or November…but now all the sudden their going to turn over a new leaf because the calendar says January. We eat foods like pork, cabbage, or black-eyed peas (the food, not the horrible “music” group) because we’ve been told they’ll bring us luck, success, and affluence. I don’t know about y’all, but I’ve been eating that stuff every New Year’s Day my entire life and I’m still poor.
Is there anything wrong with the idea of New Year’s and a new beginning?? Not at all. Just because Jesus was almost certainly born nowhere close to December 25 and that date was simply co-opted by the early church to squash the pagan celebration of Saturnalia doesn’t mean that Christmas is bad. On the contrary…celebrating the birth of Christ is a wonderful idea. Similarly, making January 1st a day of renewal & restoration…a kind of rebirth of our lives…isn’t a bad idea at all. But much like Christmas I think maybe we kind of mistreat New Year’s nowadays. The aforementioned resolutions are too often shallow, vain, meaningless, and broken before the calendar turns to February. We love to talk about changing & improving our lives, but we aren’t really very committed to following through. We embrace the hope a new year brings, but abandon that hope as soon as things start to go to hell in a handbasket just like last year.
Maybe a better idea is to treat every single day as a gift from God and an opportunity to be a better person than we were yesterday. Sammy Hagar sings a song called Give to Live that I absolutely love. In the song The Red Rocker gives the following advice: “If you want love you’ve got to give a little. 
If you want faith just believe a little. If you want peace turn your cheek a little. If you know what you want just go on out and get it. Don’t give up…don’t give up…don’t give up”. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been tempted to give up many times, especially on lonesome days like New Year’s Eve when feeling forgotten, overlooked, and taken for granted. But then I remember that every day is New Year’s Day in some way. Oh sure we are going to have bad days. We are going to fail, screw up, not feel well, and come face to face with the abyss. But, as Tom Hanks says in Cast Away (#40 on my Favorite Movies list), we’ve “got to keep breathing because tomorrow the sun will rise and who knows what the tide could bring”. And hey…maybe I’ll have a date next New Year’s Eve!!
half of the Santa suit. I will let you guess which half. Secondly, no one is currently sitting on my lap, but I am allowing females over the age of 21 to audition for the role of a naughty elf. Call or text me anytime. And unfortunately I wield no real power in getting the following recipients their potential gifts. I can only hope that in between checking his list twice, stalking all the children while they are sleeping AND awake, and stuffing his chubby face with tasty treats the real Santa Claus does a bit of Internet surfing and is a regular reader of this humble website of mine. However if there are any kind souls who would like to bring yours truly some milk & cookies I prefer 1% or skim and am partial to chocolate chip or Oreos. Enjoy.
under the heavy influence of adult beverages while in college), and I have nothing against the occasional cigar…..but that does not a smoker make. I put this in the 7 spot simply because I do know people that have quit successfully, and I think more often than not, out of all of these resolutions, this is the one people really WANT to keep. But I also know that quitting is a very difficult task and something that has to be done because a person is really truly ready to make a change and not just because the calendar says January 1.
feed the dog, pay the cable, phone, and internet bill, and show up to work on time it’s all good. I did go through a phase where I carried around a very nice looking planner for a couple of years, but I came to realize that I rarely had anything to plan. Now I know life can be a bit more hectic for folks with a spouse, children, an important job, and lots of social activities. But it is my opinion that there are two kinds of people…those fastidious, Type A, jet setting, always-on-the-go types who need to “be organized”, and then the other 90% of the population. If you fall into the first group you are probably already organized, and if you’re a common ordinary schlub like me then why bother?? Really, you aren’t that important. Nothing in your life is that dire of an emergency…you just like to ramp up the drama to inflate your sense of importance and self worth. Calm down, chill out, and have a beverage. As long as you feed your kids and keep them in school, make sure you’re a good employee at work, and keep the car gassed up you’ll be okay.
African kids that hang out with 
years of public school as a marathon that they cross the finish line of sweaty, exhausted, and borderline delirious. Once they are out they are OUT. Some of us run a little further into college, but eventually we crawl feverishly across that threshold as well, glad that it’s over. Then there are those folks that never stop. They have 8 degrees, they take classes online, they attend workshops at the YMCA…they just can’t get enough. That second group of people doesn’t make this resolution because they don’t have to. The first group will never keep the resolution because if they were that sort of person they’d be in the latter group.
have a schedule to do it and force yourself to maintain that schedule then it is likely that you aren’t going to get much out of your reading. If we would all just shut the computer and the TV off for awhile each day and be lead by The 
student loans, medical expenses, mortgages, and car payments take a big chunk out of a lot of folks’ paychecks. And every January people say “This is the year I am gonna pay everything off!!” But inevitably something happens…the car breaks down, the roof needs replaced, the kids get sick, the company downsizes. It’s called life, and oftentimes it isn’t kind. That doesn’t mean we stop trying. Hell no…we get back on that horse and we try again. And I am certainly not advocating wallowing in debt. However, I am also not a big fan of setting yourself up for disappointment and the discouraging feelings of failure that arise when you still owe some major bucks in 365 days. Unlike the previous entrant in this list, getting out of debt does require a plan and a steadfast, almost dispassionate commitment to a firm course of action. That’s why glibly designating it as a New Year’s resolution is a doomed proposition.
or more, but almost certainly not less. You like to eat. So what?? A couple of years ago I lost 30 pounds. Want to know my secret?? I was in a “skilled” nursing facility, at the age of 33, for 6 months. I don’t really support that plan. And that experience also taught me that having access to tasty food is a gift from God that we shouldn’t dismiss so thoughtlessly. I am not promoting being purposely unhealthy. Don’t let yourself become one of those people on a Richard Simmons special that hasn’t been able to leave home since The Reagan Administration and needs a crane to take the side off their house and transport them to the hospital, like the mother from What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? who died and they burnt the house down because that was the easiest way to dispose of the body. But again, if you need an arbitrary date on the calendar to make an empty promise that you are all the sudden…overnight…going to change your unhealthy habits then your chances of success are slim (no pun intended). You will make those changes when you are really motivated and ready, and there is less than a 1% chance of that moment magically occurring on January 1.
The Manofesto 