I was already one drink in, and working on a second, before I
remembered that, for New Year’s, I had resolved to not drink
so much. Maybe I forgot because New Year’s was almost two
weeks ago, or maybe it was the hangover from the night before, but
for whatever reason, my resolution had completely slipped my mind.
The good thing about resolving to drink less is that while you may
feel guilty after one drink, you certainly don’t after six. I
related this piece of wisdom to my friend Meredith, who responded,
“My New Year’s resolution is to not make any New
Year’s resolutions.” Meredith thinks she’s
clever.
But I see her point. It’s hard not to get annoyed by the
constant, grinding barrage that has become the commercialization of
New Year’s resolutions. At the Wells Fargo, the smiling men
and women in the advertisements encourage me to be more like them.
“I will make my money work for me in 2006,” says the
male model dressed as a painter. “I believe it should be easy
to know what I spend and where” exclaims the career woman,
who has a latte in her hand to reaffirm that she is just like
you.
Not to be outdone, the multinational Fortune 500 leviathan
Borders Group reminds me that I should make New Year’s
resolutions like “I will love,” with a picture of a
woman clutching a Dr. Phil book. This is to imply that Borders is
indeed offering me tangible love, which is generous considering all
I have to give them in return is money. This manner of cheap,
common peddling elicits this knee-jerk response that tempts me to
dismiss the whole process as a facile waste of time and
thought.
I resolve to be less hateful.
But as frustrating as the commercial inundation can be, New
Year’s resolutions aren’t bad after all, if you can get
past the hideous exploitation of what should be a good thing. I
don’t expect many people resolve to be cruel to kittens or to
develop a heroin addiction. Resolutions are, on the whole, personal
pledges to better ourselves.
“There is a 200 percent increase in new gym membership
between December and January,” explains Nick Hamden of L.A.
Fitness. But then we get another, larger problem, because how many
people actually stick with it? Hamden told me that the gym
attendance bulge is completely done by late-March. According to an
APA-sponsored article, 60 percent of those who make resolutions
drop them by the 6 month mark.Ultimately, the smokers are still
smoking and the drinkers are still drinking, leading us to believe
that New Year’s is simply a necessary hiccup in the firmly
established pattern of self-destruction that we have come to
recognize as life in America.
I resolve to be less pessimistic.
There are some resolutions that work. Dan Wootton, a
fourth”“year engineering student, told me that he resolved to
quit smoking last year and has been successful, at least for the
last 54 weeks. Is this not what we are all supposed to do all the
time ““ identify goals and strive for them? “How else
are you supposed to change your life,” he asked me,
“things like this don’t just happen on their
own.”
John Norcross, a University of Scranton psychology professor and
the author of several studies on the subject, notes in his research
that people who make New Year’s resolutions are 10 times more
likely to change than the people who don’t even try. It is
inspiring really, when you think about how powerful we are, that we
as human beings can do anything we set our minds to.
I resolve to stop quoting high school guidance counselors.
The fact remains that it has become trendy to insult New
Year’s resolutions. Yes, they have become cliched, and yes,
they have been rampantly commercialized beyond all limits of taste
and reason, but they are not to be dismissed. There is no need to
take what is, in essence, an earnest desire to change one’s
life for the better, and lump it into the “easy
punchline” category with Scientology and Lyndon LaRouche.
“Resolutions deserve a little more respect,”
Norcross insists. “These people are taking on serious health
problems, and many of them do succeed.”
I have made only modest headway in my resolution, but I have
made some. We should not deride a good thing because of its
drawbacks. Sure, it’s a little cliched, but why not?
It’s the new year.
Have you resolved to stop taking high-handed advice from
strangers? Let O’Bryan know at jobryan@media.ucla.edu. Send
general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.