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 As we enter 1999, with resolutions buzzing in our ears, and the chill of winter howling outside the door, it is easy to come over all glum with thoughts of how we didn't get done everything from 1998. Things on your to-do list do not instantly vanish at midnight on December 31 each year. Some tasks slop over messily from 11:59 PM to 12:01 AM. Some tasks simply take a long time. Scientific research, for instance, can take many lifetimes. Short tasks like laundry, follow an altogether different - and for me - syncopated rhythm. Cleaning out the refrigerator can be almost indefinitely postponed under normal circumstances. Something to be done before you try to sell the house, perhaps.
One of my friends says that in her culture New Year's day is for setting the tone for the new year. You should spend it doing whatever you hope to be doing for the whole year. It is good to be sure the house is tidy, and that your bills are paid, but that you also should be sure to do what you love on New Year's so that you are more likely to do more of that later on. If you hope to be making more money, ask your boss for a raise, or at least roll up some pennies. If you hope to get married, make sure you have a date for a New Year's party. It sounded like a self-fulfilling prophesy to me, and I was all for it. So, I woke up this morning, all fired up, planning to write more C++ code for our product Life Balance™, ready to update our web pages, and eager to finish reading a book that I started in 1998 with a bookmark tantalizingly close to the end. That was before I noticed that the butter in the refrigerator had gone all runny. So the first task of 1999 was to ring up an appliance repair shop in the hope that with quick intervention, our refrigerator would make it to the 21st century (although sadly the milk did not make it until the end of the Rose Bowl Parade). Coffee-mate floated uninspiringly in small lumps over the surface of my morning cup of coffee as the twenty foot tall chrysanthemum spacemen and teddy bears processed in Pasedena's annual hallucinogenic splendor. Somewhere else I read about a tradition on New Year's Eve where you light a fire in the fireplace and write on 6 sheets of paper things that are obstacles to your plans for the New Year. At each hour from 6 PM to midnight, you throw a paper representing one obstacle into the fireplace and remove it from your life as it rides your aspirations floating up the chimney flue. I don't think that having my refrigerator go on the fritz was the kind of obstacle that they expected to be foremost in my mind for the New Year. By late afternoon, it was obvious that the refrigerator had reached optimum temperature for the growth of bacterial cultures. Opening the refrigerator, we were confronted with the unmistakable stench of dairy products gone south, and there were long forgotten leftovers on the verge of rising from the dead to make a play for independence in the outside world. With some time left to go before our service was scheduled, it became clear that emergency measures were in order. This new year began with all my capers, jams and pickles sitting on the porch. What a surprise! We rolled up our sleeves for a full fridge clean-out. We spun up the CD player to play the Sorcerer's Apprentice, Suzanne Vega's 99.9 Fahrenheit degrees, Dueling Banjos, and I'm sorry to admit, Sweeney Todd. We held our noses, cranked up the garbage disposal, and successfully used up a full roll of paper towels, deployed a half a bottle of Fantastic and finished off with a final blessing of Arm and Hammer Baking Soda. I am proud to report that my refrigerator is now clean and free of inedibles. My C++ code is another matter, unfinished business that sits like an eight hundred pound gorilla at the top of my year's to-do list waving a banana peel to drop directly in my chosen path. I do think that New Year's Day is a good time to review your goals and steel up your nerve for another round of personal effort, and while my new At a Glance day calendar tells me that Susan B Anthony said "Failure is impossible", and I do believe that ultimately our resolve to be more productive and happier people will yield results, that does not mean that we won't have unscheduled refrigerator cleaning along the way. Susan B. Anthony's confidence that we will ultimate succeed is reassuring when facing a rotten cucumber. We can regain composure and dignity and get back to the business of making our vision of ourselves as better people more reality than fiction. My favorite fortune cookie says "a delay is better than a disaster." If you find yourself slipping on the banana peel of your resolutions, don't give up, just start over from wherever you are. First thing on January 2 will be just fine. |
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