Every year around this time many folks begin discussing their plans for change. They call it their New Year’s Resolution. Whether the plan is to focus on family, move up in their career, start a new hobby, lose weight, gain weight — it all stems from an inner desire to change. That desire is fed by the knowledge that change is indeed needed.
And every year, around this time, some asshole, big mouth, opinionated schmuck starts telling everyone how they don’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions, and how they don’t understand why people don’t change now instead of waiting for the New Year. They finish off by stating how most people never complete their resolutions. A schmuck is like a sucker MC. All talk. No action. No game. No skill.
Assholes. Every single one of them.
Don’t let them bring you down. The fact that you acknowledge the need for change in your life is awesome! The act that you want to re-focus your energies to achieve your passions is powerful. Don’t let some malcontent take the fizz out of your soda. If they don’t believe in resolutions that’s fine. At the very least they should be a good friend and support you in your endeavors — not seek to deflate them by belittling your effects.
I don’t care what stats they quote, these folks are middle-of-the-road mediocre assholes. Most think too highly of themselves to acknowledge that fact that they need some change in their lives. The fact is, most are too afraid to do anything outside of their box of comfort and they want to keep you down with them. Don’t let them.
Tell them to shut up and keep making your New Year’s Resolution. And make it schmuck-free.
I may not have expressed myself well: it’s the ritual that I feel is silly, not the commitments that people make to improve their lives. An analogous distinction would be between giving gifts out of generosity, and giving them because “you’re supposed to do that at [holiday].”
I suppose that if when the New Year’s routine motivates someone to get unstuck, it has value. But too often it goes the other way, leaving people feeling pressured and unresponsive to circumstances. I don’t like what it does to the friends who I want to support.
Maybe I responded too much to the issue of resolutions, and not enough to your larger point. People who belittle your dreams and passions are indeed assholes!
All the best to you in your endeavors! And thanks for writing a thought-provoking blog. Your own decisions to grow have my support, whatever form they may take.
“New Year’s Resolutions get you stuck in your head. They’re about what you thought you should be doing by now, instead of where you really are at this very moment.”
If someone is “stuck in the head” at the thought of making changes in their life, they’re probably already stuck in the head and a resolution has nothing to do with it. The focus of my article was not merely on folks who don’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions, but folks who insist on belittling, downplaying or harrumphing others when they discuss their NY resolutions. Calling it “silly” is contrary to your statement about “supporting others.”
I’m not the person I was a year ago in so many ways. And in light of the space-time continuum thee’s no way he can ever make decisions for me going forward from now. However, I can make decisions now that will effect what type of person I become in the future and that’s a good thing because I (like so many others, I believe) are trying to better ourselves in more ways than one.
I don’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions. And stats have nothing to do with it. Comfort has nothing to do with it.
New Year’s Resolutions get you stuck in your head. They’re about what you thought you should be doing by now, instead of where you really are at this very moment. They tell you to try to lean on the resolve of who you were last year (an impossible task!) instead of finding the resolve within yourself right now.
Think of yourself a year ago. Would you want that person to get to decide what you’re doing now? I didn’t think so. So why do you need to decide what next year’s you will be doing? Let his passion drive him–as yours drives you now.
Moving your life forward is a beautiful thing, and so is supporting someone else moving her life forward. Let’s just do it without this silly ritual.
And on that note, all the best of luck to you in your filmmaking–seriously. It takes guts to really commit to an artistic field.