Failed New Year’s Resolutions’ Solutions

The end of January is fast approaching and it’s time to measure the progress of your new year’s resolutions and make a list of people who heard you proudly proclaim those ambitious goals on New Year’s Eve–so you can be sure and avoid them.

Or if avoidance isn’t your forte, either because you’re humble enough to admit your mistakes or because you’re just really bad at directions and can’t navigate a safe avoidance path, you can follow my lead and prepare a list of excuses to counter reminders of all your unrealized best intentions.

“It turns out I’m much busier writing my thesis than I expected.”
You can always expect your audience to reply, “What’s your thesis about?”
“Theories and Applications of Minding Your Own Business.”

“When I set my goals and estimated the time required, I had no idea this year would be shorter than last year. Literally. It’s the darnedest thing, but that earthquake in Japan redistributed the Earth’s mass and now the Earth’s spin has accelerated, shortening the length of each day by 1.8 microseconds. If I couldn’t get those things done last year, how am I supposed to do any better with 657 fewer microseconds a year?” If you keep talking and giving them statistics, they might grow bored and walk away before they remember this is leap year.

“I know I said I was going to quit drinking, but it proved impossible to write on my list of goals with my hand shaking so badly.”

She had curves in all the right places.

“Every goal that seemed important in December seemed to fade in significance once I hit January and realized I was only one month away from February’s Black History Month. I guess I’ve been too busy combating racism to worry about any personal improvement.”

“Actually I’m one for two on my goals. The first goal was to stop putting off getting Lasik eye surgery. My second goal was to get in shape and finally impress that girl at the gym. But after getting the Lasik, turns out that girl was a coat rack. And not even a nice coat rack…I’m so, so lonely.”

“I wanted to dress classier and go to the gym more. But the two goals cancelled each other out when the gym instituted a no ball gown policy.”

“I set a goal to start getting up earlier so I could get more accomplished each day; but did you know it’s dark in the morning? The very first day I realized I wasn’t going to get anything done in the dark.”

“The first day of the year I wrote out a month-by-month plan to make this the year I finally get organized, and I put the outline in an organizational planner.”
“And?”
“I lost the organizational planner.”

“I really did intend to make this the year I started working harder, but I think I might be allergic to hard work. Every time I’d try and work faster I’d have the strangest symptoms, like my skin would get sweaty, I’d start to feel tired, and I would feel so, so bored. And the next day I’d feel achy.”