Revolve
New Year’s resolutions feel a lot like a fresh opportunity wrapped in self-delusion. To resolve is to fix but most often what is witnessed—by January 14th or so—is a revolving pattern, a cycle of missteps. The frustration among resolution frolickers is unique. The only feeling I can compare it to is the experiences I have had trying to qualify for “fitness competitions,” in which case you have to film yourself performing an array of exercises on camera and in front of a clock. The anonymous onlookers keep you accountable. The quality of movement improves but the dramatics are often also increased to pad the insult of an ineffective score. Sometimes, these virtual circuses include technical movements like double unders with a jump rope, an exercise where you simply have to jump high enough to pass the rope under your feet twice. One might be proficient in the movement on any other day but something happens when you hit record, say your name and category to the anonymous judges, and proceed to then miss the first few jumps, catching the rope on your toe or clothing and removing your chances at success — or any desire to live. You might quit right then and there, maybe giving up on the sport altogether, or at least till the next qualifier. One cannot accurately describe the failure or convey the frustration and yet, it is all arbitrary. All we would have to do is reset and keep going.
New Year’s is no different. We all line up for this made-up start date, trying to forgive and forget the failures and dietary indiscretions of the past 12 months and making big promises for the future. It is a chance to try and be who we really want to project or present to the rest of the world, and hopefully, prove that we are who we think we are. We don’t even need a six-pack or to win a bodybuilding show, we just want to look like we try when caught wearing an ill-fitted T-shirt or seen clumsily bent over, belly squishing into our not-so-flattering jeans. The point isn’t to lambast those who want a fresh start, it is to empathize with their eventual frustration and failure but to also make it clear: you can’t start again, you can only keep going.
You will see no shortage of ads appealing to the “start-over crowd.” If we were savvy business types, we might even try it ourselves, selling people on our remote program, promising them a better future for a low monthly investment. That would be plausible if the whole thing didn’t make me ill. In fact, I don’t want Resolutioners to use our methodology. It wouldn’t work, to be honest. Our practice is one that pays dividends over time, it does not leverage short-sighted motivation, or half-ass wishes to be “fit for summer” or whatever. What we are for is the person who metaphorically keeps tripping over that goddamn rope but refuses to stop recording. They just keep jumping, motivated by the difficulty, pressed by an invisible hand to figure it out. That’s because we realize there isn’t starting over. You are what you are, and you are most likely not at the start line but in the middle. In the middle, there are no crowds to cheer for you, no support system, and hardly any reference points for how much longer you have to try hard.
Starting over insinuates some kind of erasure, a clearing of “mistake debt.” But such a thing would also erase the hard-won lessons that would allow you to stop making mistakes in the future. And this is where starting over goes wrong. By forgiving and forgetting your past failures, you remove your ability to learn from them. Don’t start over, just start again, and again, and again. Quit quitting. You are in the middle of whoever you are going to be, and you are the only one who gets to decide how the last half goes.
