Charissa Graves
From the Graves
It may be surprising (to absolutely no one) that I am a bit of a cynic when it comes to New Year’s resolutions, and not just because of how busy the gym gets for the first two weeks of every January.
I respect the idea of trying to better oneself, and I can also appreciate that, for many, January 1 provides a clean slate with which to do so.
However, in response to that idea, I present a quote from one of my favorite childhood heroines, Anne of Green Gables.
“Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”
Every day, every hour, every second is an opportunity to change your life, and a date on a calendar doesn’t mean anything until you decide it does.
It’s easy to set a goal, fail once, and call the whole thing a wash, but it’s also so unbelievably limiting. It is worth noting that I say this as a complete hypocrite, as that is an instinct I have to fight every second of my life.
In spite of that instinct, I have made a permanent resolution to never stop trying to improve myself, and I fail all the time. I find myself backsliding and self-sabotaging more than I care to admit, and sometimes I need to take a beat before continuing. But, that doesn’t mean I allow myself to give up entirely.
I used to relate myself to those sharks that can’t ever stop moving because if they do they’ll suffocate, and in a way I still do, but it’s different now. For me, that used to mean that I could never stop chasing professional or academic goals unless I wanted to become a failure. Now, I consider the ability to slow down and take rest a step forward, because it has improved my ability to function as a human being, and it’s a way that I’ve been able to prove to myself that I can adapt with the changes my body and mind have gone through in the past few years.
New Year’s resolutions don’t tend to allow for much nuance or flexibility, at least in my experience. You either get in shape, learn an instrument, quit a bad habit or read a certain amount of books, or you don’t, and that’s it. Unfortunately, progress is rarely as linear as we would like it to be, and I’ve seen that discourage so many people before they were able to take a real shot.
If I was going to make a resolution this year, it would be to take each day as it comes, striving to be the best version of myself, and I know that I would fail. That’s fine though, because I know that the person I should aspire to be is one that is capable of falling, getting back up, and moving forward (in a metaphorical sense, anyway. A literal fall would be much harder for me to come back from).
I’d also like to avoid being hit by any more vehicles, but that’s more of a life resolution.
Charissa Graves is a reporter for The Hutchinson Tribune. She can be reached at: charissa@hutchtribune.com.