For some it was loud and bright, with colors abounding in a shower of confetti or balloons and jumbled together like pieces from a jigsaw puzzle. Others spent it just hanging out or sleeping.
Regardless of how you were spending the night, the New Year bounded on the scene. I tried to avoid everything. I did my best impersonation of Big Tigga, spending the majority of my break lounging, or languishing, depending on whom you ask, in the fluorescence of my basement. I was watching movies, caught up in what my parents are referring to as DVD fever.
So on my break I didn't participate in the usual festivities - the drinks, the parties, the clubs or even the countdown; but that's not a bad thing. I was hoping to miss out on being asked about my New Year's resolution too, but I wasn't so lucky.
I teeter on the edge of morally opposing the resolution tradition. In a lot of ways resolutions are just empty words. I was tempted to tell people I now subscribed to the Calvinist method of resolutions ("Calvin and Hobbes," not John Calvin: "I resolved to quit hiding my feelings so much! From now on, the world's gonna know exactly what I think of it!") but it wasn't worth the effort. I resolved to uphold my resolutions after the credits had rolled, especially when people were asking me my resolution while I watched Keyser Soze toy with the law.
From antiquity and continuing today, it's recognized as a day in which rites were performed to exorcise the demons of the past so there can be a new beginning. Whether the ritual gives a purification, an actual exorcism, an extinguishing and rekindling of flames, a masked procession or another event, the reasoning behind it was simple: the celebration of a new year beginning. Along with the New Year's arrival came the chance to begin anew. Hello 2002.
What were your New Year's resolutions? How many have you already broken?
"I asked Dad if he wanted to see some New Year's resolutions I wrote. He said he'd be glad to, and he was pleased to see I was taking an interest in self-improvement. I told him the resolutions weren't for me, they were for him." - Calvin
"I had resolved to be less offended by human nature, but I think I blew it already." - Hobbes
Other than one of the residents of the Boondocks, who else but Calvin could put the idea of resolutions and the season of change into words? The nature of resolutions and the attempt to keep them is entirely cyclical. While typically the resolutions will refer to simpler things, Calvin (as usual) was talking about a bigger picture. Don't be satisfied with the status quo. Break the mold.
So how's this for a resolution: Don't have them just be empty words. Do something new, learn something not centered in your major. Be more open-minded. Get to know someone new, someone seemingly unlike yourself. It requires more effort but it can be done. The idea of self improvement is a powerful one.
Write to Aric at ariclewis@hotmail.com
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