My Only Resolution

January 15, 2013 by UndercoverL | 5 Comments

Yesterday as I scrubbed my abysmally dirty master bathroom, I let my mind wander to topics I want to write about on this blog.  There are a few that I want to write, but in the spirit of time-sensitivity, the post about dogs and children will have to wait until tomorrow.  (As a teaser, my list for WTF Friday: Volume 8 is already sprouting.) January is nearly half over, so I want to touch on resolutions one last time before the topic becomes obsolete and everyone has thrown in their towels on their own New Year’s resolutions.

You’ll remember that I’ve written about resolutions not once, but twice (both being WTF Friday instalments, which shows how I feel about them, as a whole).  In one of these posts, I commented that my only New Year’s resolution was going to be not to write any New Year’s resolutions.  I also predicted that I would fail at keeping that resolution.  And I have.

Photo courtesy of someecards.com.

There are several potential resolutions that I considered making this year.  In 2013, I was intending to:

• Floss my teeth daily
• Run twice a week
• Participate in three 5k races
• Pray with my kids every night
• Create a daily house-cleaning list
• Read 30 books this year
• Write a post every day
• Stop drinking (but I knew I would definitely fail at that, so I figured I could replace it with ‘drink like a fish,’ which I also will fail at)
• Start smoking (while we are on the topic of unhealthy vices)
• Get at least one of my entrepreneurial endeavors off the ground

Photo courtesy of someecards.com.

But I knew that I would fail at each and every one of these.  Then I would end up being angry and feeling bad about myself.  The process of developing into the person I want to be would spin wildly out of control and I would end up hating myself more on December 31, 2013 than I did on December 31, 2012.  I don’t think that is what resolutions were meant for.  I have a real problem with self-loathing.  I can’t pinpoint what it is, and it really doesn’t matter.  I don’t tell you this so that you can write comments that edify my shaky self-esteem (“Gee Undercover, you sure are swell.”), I am just qualifying why I set the one and only resolution I have for 2013 because it will serve me and my family well.

The only resolution I have for 2013 is to do something every single day that will make me proud of myself.  It doesn’t have to be something big.  (Yesterday, it was rolling up my sleeves and cleaning my master bathroom– a chore that my husband and I have been avoiding since before we moved into this house 7 months ago.)  Every single day I have to do something that will let me love myself when I go to bed at night.  The rules are loose enough that almost anything can qualify, and what it forces me to do is view my daily tasks with a positive perspective as I find the action that I completed each day that fits the bill.  So there you have it.

Photo courtesy of someecards.com.