New Year’s resolution should be less personal and more communal.
New Year’s resolutions, as everyone knows, are made to be broken.
Here we are, six days into 2006, and most of us have probably already eaten more than we swore we would eat once we started that diet the one we were so sure we would stick to this time. Somehow, the leftover cake and ice cream from the New Year’s Eve party were just too tempting to pass up.
For others, kicking the cigarette habit would be priority No. 1 in 2006 but after a long night of partying and two full days to recover, that pack that was supposed to be scrunched up into a little ball and ceremoniously dumped into the garbage somehow resisted its planned fate.
In all likelihood, the only resolution we haven’t broken yet is the one about saving money and that’s only because Monday was a holiday, the banks weren’t open and we didn’t have as much opportunity to go out and spend, spend, spend as we normally do. Then again, some of those after-the-holidays sales may have lured more than a few folks out to the malls on the second day of the new year. And for the stay-at-home crowd, the Internet and TV shopping networks may have retained their seductive ways.
Let’s face it. There’s a reason going on a diet, quitting smoking and saving money are the three top New Year’s resolutions year after year after year. Try as we might to break these nasty habits, we keep eating, smoking and spending year after year after year.
So here’s another idea. How about if, instead of resolving to do something in 2006 to better ourselves, we resolve to do something to better others? Instead of concentrating so much effort on making ourselves prettier or healthier or richer, we focus more on making our town, our state, our nation and our world a prettier, healthier, richer place to live?
There’s no dearth of opportunities to do so. We can volunteer at the local hospital, a nearby soup kitchen, a faith-based counseling service, a crisis hotline. We can make donations of cash, food, clothing and other necessities to relief agencies, emergency-service providers, veterans’ groups and other organizations that feed the hungry, house the homeless and otherwise assist the needy.
It’s odd, really, that these thoughts are so prominent near the end of the old year, when everyone is into the spirit of giving, but rarely mentioned at the start of the new year, when everyone seems to be into setting more personal goals and agendas. Donations of both time and money to charitable organizations traditionally reach their peak in December, then plummet in January. A cynic would say donors race to meet the year-end deadline to make their generosity tax-deductible which might, in fact, account for some of the monetary contributions, but doesn’t begin to explain the more altruistic commitment of time.
As we settle back into our routines this week following the extended holiday season, let’s not lament the New Year’s resolutions we’ve already failed to keep or worry about the other ones we’re on the verge of breaking. Instead, let’s resolve simply to be better people people who care about each other as much as we care about ourselves. Then we can look forward to a truly prosperous 2006.