I Resolve to Have NO Resolutions — jules rowlen writes

The beginning of a New Year is a ridiculously hopeful time for me.

I used to write my resolutions with the optimistic flourish that this year will be different. This year it will all come together. This year my dreams will come true.

Spoiler alert, they haven’t—at least, not in the ways I thought. My resolutions now are the same as they were ten years ago: 1. Write the book and 2. Lose the weight, which is why I don’t write them anymore. It’s depressing that after a decade of pining and plotting the book is unfinished and my circumference is larger than ever.

One of the many problems with resolutions is that if I haven’t lived up to the precedent I set the December before, I feel like a failure. Maybe rightfully so. I mean, I had a year—365 long days—to get my ass in gear, right? What was I doing? Sitting on the couch? Eating myself into a coma? Planning a wedding? Working overtime?

Or was I just plain lazy?

At one point or another, I was all of those things. Every time I wrote the same sad list as the previous year, I had less confidence that I’d follow through since I’d already proven that the only thing I could count on was making the same empty promises with my pen and a clean sheet of paper.

This Year I will:

1. Write the book

2. Lose the weight

In the interest of self-preservation, I’m giving up resolutions.

Don’t misunderstand—I’m not giving up on writing or getting healthy. But I am dispensing with the idea that if I don’t accomplish these goals (goals, my most hated word) I’m a lazy, talent-less, failure. As it turns out, my journey to getting healthy and writing books has been less a straight line and more a meandering path that lead to this point in 2019 where I still haven’t done either because I had other stops to make first.

And I’m OK with that. Finally, I’m honestly and totally at peace with where I am.

The beauty of going forward without the burden of resolutions that are likely to fall away by February is that I’m open to all possibilities and attached to none. Maybe this will be the year it all comes together. Or maybe (most likely) I have more to learn. Either way, I’m ready for whatever 2019 has in store.