My daughter has a tendency to become quite agitated quickly over small silly things that  tickle me more than they should. We spend a great deal of time watching TV in my bed in the evenings and sometimes in the mornings.  Ella often walks into my room, hovers and becomes entranced by whatever is on the television. It seems she gets hung up on the commercials produced by the pharmaceutical companies, and often mocks all the side effects and allergic reactions that might occur.

This week we both were caught up watching a few Chantix advertisements. If you don’t already know, this is a medication some people take to help quit smoking. Ella was a bit infuriated by the featured chickens in this commercial (who were attempting to quit smoking) and she did not understand why they had clothes on, one had a coat on and another was wearing a blanket. I did not have the same confusion or agitation at the time I was watching these ads, because I feel nothing makes sense anymore. My only response to Ella, ” Come on Ella, don’t you know all chicken’s wear clothes when they quit smoking, duh?”  I even shared the story with a friend, cause it made me laugh. And I went on about my day, laughing at Ella and Chantix for the ridiculousness that is in marketing and in general.

Hours later… I was thinking about the chickens. Why were the chickens cold? I  then realized it is obvious that I need to see my eye doctor and I absolutely do not know how to identify cartoon edible fowl.  I  do take some solace in the fact that Ella has the same affliction of her eyes, her genes, and possibly shares the same apathy towards ornithology.   I do know the phrase quitting cold turkey makes much more sense when marketers use turkeys in their commercials.  Perhaps the moral of this story is it makes no sense when chickens wear clothes.

I am not one for resolutions. I don’t like them. The undue pressure on top of all the other responsibilities one has to achieve on a daily basis is a recipe for bad self-esteem. The cycle from year to year continues. It often leads to feelings of not being good enough based on societal expectations that you may not even personally aspire to achieve, but feel pressure to do.

I think maybe starting small is a better idea. For example, I always want to organize my sock drawer. When I am in a rush and trying to stuff my backpack full of workout clothes, I am always slowed down in the morning when trying to match a pair of socks. This process of opening up this bin, looking in, and muddling things around reminds me of the card game I used to play in grade school. I remember shuffling a bunch of cards and laying them face down. The process is to flip, look and turn the card back over. Then flip another, look and remember where I saw the identical card (the match) I turned over earlier. This childhood game somehow turned into my sock drawer.

I am aware how easy it would be to match the socks when I do my laundry, but I don’t. Yes, I do understand the extra time spent on matching the socks when I fold laundry would make up the time wasted on trying to match them in the morning, but apathy doesn’t care. I’ve decided this daily exercise of matching socks isn’t a nuisance, but a cognitive practice that will hopefully stave of dementia in my later years. It has to be.

The amount of time spent on taking stock and nit picking or minimizing behaviors that may be significant does require more than just setting a goal and thinking your intention alone will make it happen. The changing of one year to the next is not enough to move or motivate a shift when cognitive behavioral therapy, detox or a prescriptions of medications will do the trick to effect the wanted transformation. My point, stop the nonsense of making big life changes that are driven by the stroke of midnight.

Tuning up the engine instead of majorly overhauling it might be a better way to approach this yearly phenomenon. In my case, for example, instead of wishing for the socks to be paired, I should appreciate my ability to put my socks successfully on my feet, matching or not. Or just acknowledge that my socks are clean and are put in the proper place. Baby steps my friend. Grounding oneself in gratefulness might be a better approach.

I think most of us have all this backwards. Maybe people should focus on the positive things that occurred over the past year and expand on it. For example, I did not tuck my shirt directly into my underwear in 2019, at least to my knowledge. I plan to continue to not tuck my shirt into my underwear in 2020. Tucking, low wasted jeans and bending over are not friends to me. Perhaps the real goal should be not caring about it if I do. I may be oversimplifying this and getting off track, but I feel change should be reserved for those rock bottom moments.

For those who are in the first week into a resolution and have failed already. Please give yourselves some grace. If you are getting up in the morning, breathing air into your lungs, managing to put one foot in front of the other, then rejoice. You are still here. Whether you think your life is sometimes heaven or hell, you are here and you must be doing something right. I’ll embrace my unmatched socks and terrible tuck jobs, if they occur. I hope that my approach to this coming year will help me return to the gratefulness that I think we all need to embrace in 2020.