As I sit here on this fourth day of the new year, still in my pajamas hours after getting up, I feel an internal gnawing pressure to get with the program. I have what seems like a thousand ideas floating through my mind for things I'd like to change, things I feel like I should have done already. It's a varied, eclectic list of slightly belated New Year's Resolutions: No more cheap shoes. Daily exercise. Make the house look more like a home (Paint! Art on the walls! Halfway decent window coverings!). Finally get the ball rolling on finding a preschool for Westley. Lose those vexing three pounds that keep coming back. Clean and organize the playroom for real. More raw vegetables. And so on.
I want to be the kind of organized person who makes New Year's Resolutions and actually follows through with them. But the truth is that while I'm an excellent list-maker, I've never been much of a list-follower. I can put together a brilliant household budget, but sticking to it is another matter altogether. Of course, I continue to struggle with it, reworking the plan, because failing to plan is planning to fail, right?
That's where I take issue with plans, resolutions, rules, whatever. Not having them often leads to that sin-of-omission-type of failure. But there's also the sense of failure that comes from having a plan but not seeing it through. And for what? Especially since we often resolve to change things that may not be entirely within our powder to control.
So I'm going to quiet the list in my head. No resolutions this year, just ideas. Soft, slow evolution instead of hard-and-fast rules.
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