It’s that time of year again. The Christmas decorations are put away. The storage room is now pregnant with boxes filled to the brim with glittering sentiments you, at this point, are sick to death of seeing. The house is back in order and events, parties, and gift buying is no longer hijacking you—that season is over! It should be a fantastic start to a New Year. Still, I am looking towards the future with skepticism and dread.

I think it has to do with the tradition of proclaiming a goal that must be accomplished sometime within twelve months—A New Year’s Resolution. With everyone I know, the objective usually includes healthy eating, weight loss, giving up Sodas, and increased exercise. And the enthusiasm to achieve, achieve, achieve, lasts approximately three weeks. So what’s the point?

There are those of us who state we’re not making a New Year’s Resolution siting that they don’t work if we do. But then isn’t declaring a no-resolution policy a goal in itself?

For me, every New Year’s Eve resembles turning forty-years-old every three hundred and fifty-six days. I’m painfully aware that I haven’t done what I set out to do and now have to start all over. Of course, I still have that twinge of delusional optimism that for the next forty years, I’ll do things differently—I’ll do things right—which is then followed by the realization that I probably won’t.

Maybe it’s the timing? There’s so much pressure on becoming, and very little on just being at the end of a season where go, go, go, buy, buy, buy, create magic, magic, magic has exhausted every crumb of oneself. What now? How about making a list of failures and then another list of what to do to fix them? That’s not grueling or depressing at all!

Perhaps if the date for resolution happened at the beginning of spring, I’d be rested and rejuvenated enough to make a goal and achieve it? Doesn’t the end of March, when the snow’s beginning to melt, new grasses are poking up through the ice, and flowers are budding seem more conducive to newness? Self-awareness? Progress? I think so.

I know that some may call me a pessimist and some, a realist. There are those who could say I am creating my destiny with the onslaught of disappointment in the process. People might say that my biggest issue is my bad attitude. Maybe you’re all right.

I admit I don’t know how to go about doing the New Years Resolution thing correctly. Then again, does anybody?