NEUSTAETER: New Year, New Me – Just Joking

I waited my entire childhood to be able to eat candy and watch tv whenever I wanted without limitation and my adult life is basically me living out that dream with wild abandon and dragging my exhausted husband along for the ride…well, until that New Year’s resolution.

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We recognized that we weren’t getting enough sleep and since we were just re-watching The Office for the 30th time it should have been a relatively easy resolution to achieve.

The first few nights we would eye the clock as our episode approached its end – Michael Scott would be wrapping up his antics, Jim and Pam would be giving each other googly eyes and Dwight would have exhausted his wrath.

If it was too close to 10:00pm we would nod to each other knowingly; wordlessly communicating our resolve, profound maturity and self-control, “We’ve got this. We’re grown adults who make good decisions for our own welfare. We’re proud of us.”

We’d shut ‘er down before Netflix could auto-start the next episode and confidently head to bed, knowing that collectively we were stronger than our vices.

But a week or so later our episode came to its end at 9:55, leaving us in a momentary quandary.

If we were to follow the letter of our self-imposed law we were ok to start another episode….but the spirit of our decision was to make a healthier life choice and that obviously meant that it was time to turn the tv off.

I looked at my husband, he looked at me.

I flicked an eyebrow, he raised his.

“Do you want to….” “Well, I mean we DID say 10…so we still technically have 5, no, now 4 minutes to start the next episode…” “Ya, but we both know…”

Then came the fatal words by which we condemned our own healthy life choice – the great Jackie Chan’s 2 word quote (Shanghai Noon) that for over 15 years of marriage has meant we are going to forge ahead instead of packing it in, “Uno mas?”

“Uno mas.” We hit play.

A scant few days later you could find us at 9:59pm screaming, “Where’s the controller?! HIT PLAY! HIT PLAY!!!!!!” and skipping the end credits so that we could squeeze under the wire and start another episode while pretending we were still adhering to our mutual agreement.

Once we had started that next episode we would quickly pause it to replenish snacks and settle back in for the next half hour that we had scammed and wheedled for ourselves.

Within the next few weeks we would chuckle to each other as we started our new episode at 10:05, 10:17, 10:25…you get the picture.

By mid-February all bets were off and we had happily moved on to late night Parks and Recreation viewing (again).

Whether you believe that New Year’s resolutions are nonsense or you are planning to give one another shot in 2019, remember these things:

1. While setting small ambitions and using a New Year as a catalyst for change is fine, maybe we would be better served making good life choices every day and saving New Year’s resolutions for the things that truly matter, like intentional greater kindness toward ourselves and each other.

2. Don’t be too hard on yourself if your resolutions don’t all pan out; after all it’s better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all.

3. Not even the most resolute amongst us can overcome the profound genius of The Office.

Whether you are exactly the same on January 1st as you were on Dec 31st or not –

To you and yours from us and ours: may it be a Happy New Year just as you are, everyone.

by Refraction

NEUSTAETER: New Year, New Me – Just Joking

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