“They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”
Andy Warhol
My New Year’s Resolution’s have traditionally seen spectacular successes that made the whole exercise worth it – and a few utter failures which are recidivist in nature.
In focusing on the failure, I wonder at why I just don’t get it done. Much of it, I think, has to do with work. The new semester begins and I am so traumatized in terms of trying to get a handle on my classes that three months pass before I can even contemplate my own life. I am in “survival” mode.
But that does not entirely let me off the hook. For example, I could do something about my lunch situation at work that would not take huge amount of time and effort – and yet I don’t. I could get incorporated into the tennis scene here in Ventura – but I don’t. Why?
Is it the ruts of habit and convention that can run so deep in our lives? Is that the problem? We just continue to do what we have always done? Perhaps. But I also think fear plays a role. “Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most,” claimed Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Combine this fear of the new with the ingrained routine of habit and one encounters a difficult obstacle to changing behavior.
At any rate, I have my new list of New Year’s Resolutions for 2008 posted. We shall see how it goes.
Happy New Year everyone!
“Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
