Tag: New Year Resolution

Top Ten New Year Resolutions Not to Make

~ John W. Howell ~ 63 Comments

 

New Years Day

We have all made resolutions which in hindsight we probably should have left alone. I hope you have tome to go back and make some revisions if one of these is on your list.

10 When making New Year resolutions, do not include a stipulation to lose weight. If you do, at best you’ll miss your target. At worst, you’ll feel bad about your progress and consume enough ice cream to turn your goal into a three-year affair. (Funny how easy those pounds come back huh, Carswell?)

9 When making New Year resolutions, do not vow to stand up to Tiny. If you do, at best, your resolution will last three minutes. At worst, you’ll meet Tiny just as he is leaving his anger management class with an assignment to hug the first person he meets. (I’m thinking you shoving Tiny away wasn’t the best move of the new year, Carver. Good thing you have new running shoes for Christmas.)

8 When making New Year resolutions, do not swear off your favorite drink. If you do, at best you be thinking of nothing else. At worst, after what seems like a year you will have way too much to the concern of friends and family. (You made it four hours, Case. Maybe next year.)

7 When making New Year resolutions, do not include an item that requires someone else to help. If you do, at best that someone will disappear. At worst, you will count on support only to find your helper has violated the resolution several weeks ago without letting you know. (Just think of all the times your helper told you to be strong, Caster. Is that boiling blood I hear?)

6 When making New Year resolutions, do not include additional exercise goals. If you do, at best you’ll last a week.  At worst, you’ll rationalize that getting up in the morning is challenging enough.(How about that sit-up when you first wake up?  It counts right, Chadwick?)

5 When making New Year resolutions, do not eliminate sweets. If you do, at best your withdrawal symptoms will require an intravenous infusion of chocolate. At worst, your cravings will take you to the extreme where all you can think about is sweets. (I can’t believe you actually took candy from that baby, Chanan. And at gunpoint? Aw come on.)

4 When making New Year resolutions, do not vow to eat healthy. If you do, at best your food groups will be reduced to soybeans and flax seed. At worst, just when you thought you were in control you wake up in the hospital learning you were found in the walk in cooler of the local McDonalds. (Just what were you thinking, Chane?)

3 When making New Year resolutions, do not count getting organized as one of your goals. If you do, at best you not be able to find anything. At worst, you will discover in late February that you threw out all your receipts for business expenses. (All those nasty papers were ruining your Karma right, Chevalier?)

2 When making New Year resolutions, do not hope to learn a new language. If you do, at best you’ll get hello and goodby down pat. At worst, you’ll think you have it whipped after the first lesson only to find some folks shocked at what you said. (It appears that “sit on my thumb,” and “I appreciate your help,” are very close in pronunciation, Chidi.)

1 When making New Year resolutions, don’t even think about promising yourself that you will write more in 2018. If you do, at best you’ll manage the same. At worst, you will be so discouraged by your progress you will think writer’s block was invented to torture you personally. (Rather daunting to count those words (or should I say word) today huh, Chisolm?)

Top Ten No Nos is as Top Ten No No’s Does

~ John W. Howell ~ 15 Comments

Here is the 27th installment of Ten Top Lists of What Not to Do by Marie Ann Bailey of 1WriteWay at http://1writeway.com and John W. Howell of Fiction Favorites at http://johnwhowell.com. These lists are simu-published on our blogs each Monday. We hope you enjoy.

NewYearsResolution1915SecondPostcard (1)

Top Ten Things Not To Do as New Year’s Resolutions

10.  For your New Year’s Resolutions, do not put “Exercise Daily” or the word “exercise” anywhere on your list.  At best, you will wind up paying for a gym membership you will never use because you always have an excuse not to go.  At worst, while trying to cover up your lack of participation to your personal trainer, you will drop a 25-pound weight on your foot, resulting in an injury that uses up most of your sick leave and the remaining days of your gym membership.

9.  For your New Year’s Resolutions, do not include on your list: “Start the [fill in the blank] diet to lose the ten pounds I gained over the holidays.”  At best, you’ll only lose a lot of water which, for a few days, may make you look and feel like you lost ten pounds.  At worst, the minute you go off the diet, the weight will all come back, two-fold. What was with all that flushing anyway?

8.  For your New Year’s Resolutions, do not include in your list:  “Quit smoking cold turkey.”  At best, this item doesn’t apply to you because you don’t smoke.  At worst, you do smoke and going cold turkey might get you through five minutes without a puff.  Then you will tear through your house, upending the trash as you try to salvage at least one smokeable filter.  Of course, even five minutes you don’t smoke is another five minutes your body gets a break.

7.  For your New Year’s Resolutions, do not put “Get organized” anywhere on your list.  At best, it’s too vague (it could be mean get organized at work, get your kitchen organized, organize your bookshelf) and you’ll forget it anyway.  At worst, you’ll think that you have committed yourself to organizing everything in your life, including your friends’ and families’ schedules, and they will commit you for a having a near-lethal case of OCD.

6.  For your New Year’s Resolutions, do not put “Read all the books on my To Be Read list.”  In the best case, you only have two books on your TBR list and so you now have the whole year to read them.  In the worst case, you (like so many of us) have a Leaning Tower of TBR in every room in your house.  The only way you’ll get through them all is if you quit your job, quit sleeping and quit taking bathroom breaks (unless your bathroom also serves as a reading room).

5.  For your New Year’s Resolutions, do not commit yourself to reading every blog you follow every day.  Much like item #5, that will only work if, at best, you only follow a couple of blogs.  At worst, if you follow more blogs than there are seconds in a day, you may have a worse dilemma than that in #5.  Unless you don’t mind taking your iPad or laptop to the toilets with you, bathroom breaks will cost you precious reading time.

4.  For your New Year’s Resolutions, do not put “Get last year’s NaNoWriMo novel (still in first draft) published in six months” anywhere on your list.  At best (and least likely), you’ve already read through your first draft and am pleasantly surprised that it actually makes sense and will need little editing.  At worst (and most likely), you’ll find your first draft is just a hodgepodge of random stories and blog posts and any attempt to put it in readable form by the end of the year (much less published) will likely drive you insane.

3.  For your New Year’s Resolutions, do not add “Save money by not buying books” to your list.  Who are you kidding?  At best, that resolution will last only until you receive your next Barnes & Noble 20% coupon.  At worst, you’ll fill up your e-readers with free e-books until you realize that reading those books in print is much more fun.  Before you know it, you will have spent your imagined savings and it’s only week 2 of the New Year.

2.  For your New Year’s Resolutions, do not add “Learn to do at least one risky activity a month, like sky-diving or bungee-jumping.”  At best, you’ll learn about the activity but never get around to doing any of them once you understand the risks and decide life is too short to risk shortening it more.  At worst (and if you don’t think life is already too short), you’ll try to make like Nik Wallenda over the Grand Canyon, but without the success.

1.  For your New Year’s Resolutions, do not set your resolutions so high that they remain forever out of reach, nor so low that it’s not even worth stooping to find them.  Instead, for your New Year’s Resolutions, start each one with “Be grateful for …”  Be grateful for your health, for all the great books and bloggers you have to read, for knowing when to live dangerously and when to live vicariously.  Be grateful you are here for a New Year.