New Year's Resolutions 2.0

I was in Juice It Up on Main Street Wednesday morning, picking up my daily Acai Blast when the owner, Jaimy, and I were discussing the topic of New Year's resolutions.

We pretty much both agreed that New Year's resolutions are lame -- primarily because they've evaporated like rubbing alcohol on a tin roof in Miami by the time March rolls around. So, I proposed an alternative to New Year's resolutions -- the "Word of the Year."

You see, my belief is that New Year's resolutions fail for a number of reasons:

1. Lack of willpower -- Most people, myself included, have about as much willpower as there are children in Chernobyl, when it comes to New Year's Resolutions. That's because there's too much other stuff going on -- jobs, kids, bills, “Lost.” We have good intentions in making New Year's resolutions -- but fact is, there are too many other things in our busy lives that keeping us from carrying out those resolutions. Our willpower is simply dried up by the demands of modern living by the end of the day.

2. Complexity -- Sometimes the resolutions are too complex -- and require multiple sub-resolutions in order come to fruition. Let's say your New Year's Resolution is "I want to make more money." Okay -- but what does that entail? A new job perhaps? Getting a new job could be a sub-resolution all its own. Be a better manager of your financial resources? That too could be another resolution with a multitude of sub-resolutions attached to it. You see, one resolution, in all actuality, is probably about 10 resolutions rolled into one. It all looks good on the surface -- but is a heck of a lot of work.

3. Failure to identify the root problems -- New Year's resolutions don't identify the root problems that cause the need for New Year's Resolutions to exist in the first place. For example, you might want to lose 20 pounds -- but are you losing weight to be healthy? To have a better look? To get a job in the modeling industry? Let's say you complete the resolution. Then what? What's mountains are left to climb -- and did you learn anything on the way up? Sure, it may be great to fly to the moon -- but if the rocket ship is low on fuel, you just might find yourself stranded on that big space rock. A New Year's Resolution that fails to identify the root issue at hand can be like building a house on a sand bar -- it may stand for awhile, but anything built upon a weak foundation will eventually fall.

In contrast, a Word of the Year can be the cure-all for the problems, ailments, drama and imperfections that can be associated with New Year’s Resolutions. A Word of the Year can be 1). Simple enough to be remembered throughout the year 2). Ambiguous and flexible enough to applied to more than one situation 3). Written on the back of your hand 4). Suitable for creating a common themes for life and living -- without being overly ambitious or overreaching.

For example, my Word of the Year for 2008 is Humility. In all things I do this year, I hope to incorporate an aspect of humility. I have my own personal reasons for trying to be more humble that I won't fully explore here. In a nutshell, by focusing less on my accomplishments and ego, hopefully I'll do a better job of paying attention to whomever is right in front of me. Some of the result will hopefully be 1) I'll be a better writer; 2) A better listener; and 3) I'll have more interesting conversations because I am actually paying attention.

A friend of mine I talked to on New Year's Day also decided to choose a Word of the Year. The word he chose was "grateful" -- to always have a element of thankfulness in whatever he is doing. Grateful for family, life, love, job -- whatever things in life he can be grateful for.

Fact is, I have failed miserably in most of my New Year's Resolutions -- so Word of the Year is sort of like a New Year's Resolution "re-vamp" -- New Year's Resolutions 2.0 -- taking the resolution and trimming it down to its bare essentials. Whether or not this will actually work for me, however, is going to be a little like the scene in the Tom Hanks movie "Castaway" where he creates the raft out of those logs, and floats out into the ocean to an unknown fate -- wondering if his creation will sink to the bottom of the Pacific or float him to the Promised Land.

But who knows? Maybe my "Word of the Year" will sink into the depths of yesteryear like so many passé resolutions that never were allowed to flower. Anyway -- guess I'll have to wait another year to find out.