I do hereby resolve ...oh, nevermind

Christmas is over. The wrapping paper is in the dumpster. The decorations around the house have a slight melancholy about them. The teenage daughters have the iPod ear buds firmly planted in their ears. The nine year old son has his hand grafted to the video game controller and responds to questions with grunts signifying anger, triumph, or hunger. Mom is counting the hours until school starts again. Dad is counting how many hours he worked to pay for all these electronics which cause his children to ignore him. Ahhh, money well spent.
After Christmas people are looking at the New Year. A new year shouldn’t simply mean a headache, a certain spinning sensation when trying to get out of bed followed by college football. It should mean a fresh start, a chance to improve one’s life. To this end many make resolutions.
When you look up resolution in the dictionary it says: “a firm decision to do or not to do something.” The problem with the definition is the term “firm”. Most resolutions are about as firm as the handshakes you get from the “La Cage Aux Folles” chorus line. I surfed the internet for the most common resolutions. Four resolutions which showed up with frequency were: reduce stress, spend more time with the family, get out of debt, and get organized.
Reducing stress is a very positive goal. Stress causes all sorts of unhealthy side effects. I resolved to try to minimize the stress in my life. But then I started worrying I might not be able to keep my resolution. That caused stress. Then I realized to truly eliminate stress I would have to eliminate a lot of people. The guy at the grocery store self check out who pays his $37.48 bill using pennies, the kid down the block who plays his devil worshipping rap music loud enough to rattle the windows in my mother’s house 120 miles away, and the guy on the phone commercials who doesn’t even have to say “Can you hear me now,” to earn more money than I do, pant, gasp, myocardial infarction! Killing all those individuals might be cathartic, but a federal penitentiary creates a whole new set of stressors.
On to the next one. In this hustle and bustle world we find ourselves spending less and less time with our family. Everything we are, and have the potential to be, is built from our families. Our family is the foundation of our lives. The strong foundation makes for a strong house. But, have you ever looked carefully at the foundation of a house? It is full of spider webs, things the dog dragged out of the neighbor’s trash cans, and dead possum parts. The foundation is important, but do you really want to spend time with it? Look at your family. There is Cousin Frank who thinks he is a true lady’s man with his short-sleeved lime green leisure suit. Also, your sister-in-law who makes guests on the Jerry Springer Show seem sedate and well-balanced. Let’s face it, your own kids could use intensive manners training or a lobotomy, whichever is cheaper. Resolution two lasted about an hour and half into the New Year’s Day party when you suddenly remembered a pressing task at the office.
Getting out of debt is not an easy thing. Getting into debt is both easy and a heck of a lot more fun. I know creating a budget and sticking to it is the way to live. Cutting up the credit cards and putting a portion of your paycheck into a government secured education fund would be the smart thing to do. The fun thing to do is to charge a new hi-definition television, a kickin’ stereo system and a recliner with a built-in beer cooler and massage settings from “Wife’s Back Rub” to “Full Geisha” then retire to your basement to watch sports and Schwarzenegger movies until your eyeballs fall out.
The last resolution on the list is getting organized. I did a bunch of research and found several great ideas. These pointers by highly effective people make it so every thing you do will be efficient…well, I had it here a second ago. It was in a color-coded file folder, color coding helps immensely I read. The folder was purple. Purple stood for top priority. Or was it purple because it’s my daughter’s favorite color? Oh, no I feel stress, where’s my Visa? I’m going to go to the store and get enough Dr. Pepper to founder Secretariat (losing weight was also a resolution).