Resolutions

This winter I decided to write down some New Year’s resolutions during a slow afternoon at work. I’m not a resolution addict but having started a new job and moved into a new home last August, I spent a few months just catching my breath. Jan. 1 seemed as good a time as any to set some new goals.

I’m attracted to the structure of goals, the pining, checking of boxes and pats on the back. A few years ago I applied to run the New York Marathon and finished in minimal pain, check. Likewise, if I set my sights on a bottle of wine on any given night to accompany a movie or a friend, I’ll be sure to finish that bottle, check. The word goal carries positive overtones, but the term can be applied to varied aspects of life—consumption and ambition alike.

Before I knew it my “resolutions” were divided into several categories covering three pages, and I had writer’s cramp. I was surprised at my productivity level and felt a little light-headed.

One of the first resolutions in my "health" category was to go to a yoga class at least once a week. I certainly don’t consider myself to lead a yogic lifestyle, but it’s a good place to find some quiet every once and a while. I made it to yoga twice. The second class canceled out the yoga=quiet equation. The instructor filled up all that quiet space with words using yoga ideals as her springboard. She focused her mini-sermon on my favorite new topic: resolutions. She suggested that it might be unhealthy to focus on continually trying to perfect ourselves. She repeated a new mantra—You are already what you seek. Just ten minutes later the instructor dipped into humored self-deprecation saying that she wanted to hunt down the urban-legend taxicab matchmaker to solve her single blues.

The next day I ran a few miles on the west side highway after work, picked up some wine, sausage, and chocolate for a dinner party, and accidentally lost my resolutions packet somewhere between home and the studio.