As I was contemplating the New Year I decided that the reason people get so excited about it, is because it is a chance to start over with a clean slate...and everyone loves a clean slate. Even if it only lasts for a month, the resolutions you make on January 1st, make you feel like you can overcome all your past bad behavior, mend your ailing relationships and become the best you that you can be. For at least a week you have visions of yourself becoming a thinner, nicer, all around better version of your current self. Not to be too cynical but the majority of resolutions end in failure...if that wasn't the case I don't think the majority of Americans would be overweight. So the questions becomes, why do we start off with such good intentions and then regress to our previous bad behavior? Why does all our will power go out the window? I bet there is a huge boost in cigarette sales and lapses in gym membership around Groundhogs day.
Well my 2008 Resolution is not to lose 10 pounds, or to stop eating carbs, or to workout 5 days a week, or to stop smoking, or any of the usual midnight declarations. Instead my New Year's Resolution is to live each day with purpose and gratefulness. I'm sure there will still be days when I hate my life, or more likely the snow that has encased my car in ice , but I will try to wake-up every morning and be thankful for something. My health, my family, my friends.
I once read a statistic that after a period of time the human brain tends to remember happy memories more than tragic ones. Maybe that's why people are always referring to the "good old days" or why our parents say things like, "when I was younger people were more respectful" or why we even have the Republican party. Because in all honestly we do remember things with rose colored glasses. We remember our exes as evil and cruel but they were also the most attractive and we can't imagining loving anyone the way we loved them. That's why there is the "one that got away." Often times we remember things not as they actually were but as we wished they had been. Most likely your first love had pimples, braces and a bad haircut but we remember them as the most perfect creatures to walk the earth. The "one that got way" was probably semi- retarded and pretty much an asshole but we constantly think that they might be our soulmate. Why? Because the brain is a tricky thing. If you can shut the doors to the past and live in the moment you are a better person than me. It is easy to look back with yearning on days gone by. When you are single it is very easy to remember old relationships and think, "he was so sweet, I remember this one time when he brought me breakfast in bed" but you forget about all the times he hit the snooze button and left you eating breakfast alone.
Maybe forgetfulness is some kind of built in defense mechanism because if we had to remember all our past sins and all those done to us we would simply over load and shutdown. No one wants to think about time wasted on the wrong person or the wrong job. Thats why we tell ourselves they were "learning experiences" hell I told myself that in my last entry, and I hope its true. I hope we are on a road that is leading to some high level, some end point, a nirvana. But what if we aren't? What if there is no meaning to live, that we simply assign meaning after the fact? Well I'm not that cynical...at least not yet. I still believe in purpose, and learning experiences. The day I stop believing in those things is the day I stop growing and the day I stop being challenged. So this year I choose to remember the past, but not as I wished it to have been, but as it really was, and I chose to live my current life not how I have been... but how I would like it to be. I hope that makes some kind of sense. Happy New Year everyone and I hope this year is so terrific that you don't have to remember it anyway than how it actually was.
Side Note... If you haven't seen this movie, you really should. One of the best New Year's Eve scenes ever!
1 comment:
interesting blog, I like.
was intrigued by your thoughts on memory--I myself have been called out on my elephant-like skill of remembering everything and anything my boyfriend has said and done. My new year's resolution (other than continuing to not shoot tequila, a resolution I've kept for nigh unto 5 years now) is to remember good times better and not be so quick to pull up the oopsies from the past.
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