Consider the Anti-Resolution
If the existence of New Year’s resolutions prove anything, it’s that we are naturally optimistic. The ticking of the clock from 11:59 to midnight is rarely all that important – yet in the case with New Year’s, meaning is inescapable. Where one year brushes against the next, change and rebirth become the most important things on everyone’s mind.
But all of this you know. The New Year’s resolution is that fetishistic and life-improving (c)omission that is simple in theory but complex in execution. Its language is plain, and often takes as its subject health, hygiene, or interactions with others. For example:
a) Change diet and/or commit daily act of voluntary exertion
b) Be a better family member/spouse/parent, i.e., commit to daily phone calls, periodic cash deposits
c) Improve finances
d) Learn a new skill/consider a career shift
e) Relinquish a bad habit (smoking, adultery, theft)
A primary requisite for resolutions is that movements towards their completion cannot be taken until the first of January. Thus, in effect, New Year’s takes up the burden of being the reason why we are still smoking two packs of cigarettes a day or being awful to our parents. Whereas previously the blame would remain with us, once we take up a New Year’s resolution, our old habits are no longer our own fault. They exist because time allows them to be.
..all of which goes to show how troublesome the whole resolution deal actually is.
This is why I propose that you instead take up an “anti-resolution.” Rather than aim towards improvement, like the average New Year’s resolution, the anti-resolution veers in the opposite direction, demanding stagnation and decay. At its heart, the anti-resolution recognizes the resolution’s seemingly-inherent inability to be kept. If the ultimate goal of making a resolution is to feel a warm sense of accomplishment, perhaps the same feeling can be achieved by succeeding at failure.
It might be more clear via an example. Consider the anti-resolution that you won’t, for a whole year, be involved in a high-speed chase with members of law enforcement. The notion is absurd, clearly. You are more likely to push your mother down a flight of stairs than to run from the cops. But that’s exactly the point. Because you won’t ever go as far as to commit and chase-worthy crimes, the chances of you violating your anti-resolution are extremely slim. You can fulfill your resolution by doing almost nothing. And that’s the beauty of it.
Not fulfilling the anti-resolution is sort of like multiplying two negative numbers. Because your net result is a positive, you win by losing, and with a much smaller degree of investment than being nice to your sister or catching up with old friends. Let’s be honest, after all: New Year’s resolutions were never about the resolutions themselves. It’s all about the resulting feeling of accomplishment, about the vague notion that you have somehow improved your quality of life. The anti-resolution not only saves time and effort, but also shows that, in the end, your life is probably pretty great as it is.
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