Hey look, you can keep a New Year's resolution after all!

At only about 13 hours into the new year (as I am writing this at 3pm)- I can already tell you it started off better than the last.

Shit.. Objects on TV are smaller
than they appear!

Right after the ball dropped (and is it just me or is the ball getting smaller and less climactic each year?) to ring in 2012- a child who shall remain nameless woke up horking all over his bed and himself. This spread to each member of the house over the course of the next week and left me thinking "Seriously, 2012? Already?"
It seemed to already be written in the cards from the getgo that 2012 was going to suck giant donkey balls- but like with most situations I tried to stay hopeful that things would turn around.
2012 would be my year! I was going to do things better, be better, be healthier.... be something. Who knows. I was up to my eyeballs in vomit, there was no time for resolutions- not that I usually made them or anything- but it was nice to have some kind of reason to say "Okay, this is a new beginning. It's time to change something I've wanted to change before but never had the motivation before"
Though, why we feel that we can't do that any time of the year is beyond me. I guess the whole New Year's thing is sort of a mystery to me all around. Not that it's the start of a new year, that's pretty cut and dry- but why we humans make all kinds of promises to ourselves that the majority of us never follow through on. Why we think that at the flip of a calendar, the start of a new rotation around the sun- that POOF, things are suddenly going to change. The planets have aligned in our favor! Our horoscopes said so! It's a nice thought, right?

I don't have any deep or meaningful thoughts on the power of hope and faith in changing times and the goodness of people or anything like that.  To be honest I think I'm just happy to not be getting puke splattered all over me and the feeling of impending doom because I cannot avoid any illness that comes into this house. Any year that doesn't begin with the soft sound of blowing chunks is automatically an enormous upgrade.

Of course I hope that 2013 will be better than 2012. It isn't that it totally sucked for me- it just wasn't as fantastic as we all hype up a brand new year to be by celebrating the end of a sucky one. Somehow we always convince ourselves this new year, one day after the old "sucky" year is going to be the BEST YEAR EVER!!!!
I hope for good health and better eating and rock hard abs, and brownies that still taste delicious but have zero calories or fat, tolerance and acceptance of others and the fact that being different is okay and good will towards man, teleportation, success in my chosen field, a night where I actually sleep a full uninterrupted 8 hours, one single day where I don't find my ears harassed with whining and to be replaced with giggles, and for Reese's bites to be brought back and stocked on the shelves for me to stuff my face with. Seriously, if you never had Reese's bites before they were discontinued, you really missed out on the perfect chocolate to peanut butter ratio. Of course I didn't make any of those resolutions because... well... sadly, I doubt I'll ever see any of those in my lifetime and I'm certainly not going to go to school to get some kind of physicist degree to attempt to invent breaking down and reformatting the particles of a human body from one place to another and have all of that done before the ball drops on 2013.

We have to be realistic here and not make promises to ourselves that we know cannot be kept. I believe in a great deal of hope with a healthy side dish of reality.
For that reason, I think I must give up on my dreams of peanut butter chocolately goodness and scientific breakthroughs- and focus on what CAN be achieved.
Why not start with the whole "good will toward man" thing? It's not too ridiculous or far fetched (though I can tell you that while waiting in the Wal-Mart returns line the weekend after Christmas, it may be hard to keep a grip on.) It's not paying for a gym membership that you'll use for two weeks and then purposely "forget" about or "never have the time" to use. It's nothing that's so extremely life altering that we may chicken out or lose steam or lack the motivation to complete. It's not even forcing you to be nice to the assholes of the world... and oh man are there plenty.
It's simply, when faced with some nasty cheerios-peeing doucheberry that is trying to ruin your day, keeping the hope that there are still good people in the world and this asshole probably just needs to do what most assholes need to do: fart.

Not all people are bad people. Heck, most people are pretty decent. There are some sucky suck-asses sprinkled out there and occasionally one will cross your path, but not all hope is lost. Be kind to people, occasionally pay it forward if you can. Hold a door open or let someone hold one open for you. Yield. Don't be a shitty tipper. You could even go as far as maybe being kind when others don't deserve it (plus sucky people hate it when you're nice to them and perhaps the kindness will rub off and spread kindness like the bubonic plague.) Ignore them of kindness is too good for them, because most of the time- those that are assholes can't and won't change and feeding into it makes them even bigger assholes.
Oh, and don't BE an asshole. Spend your time working on that rock hard ab thing, or maybe the teleportation thing.

Boom: Good will toward man achieved. Resolution complete. You're welcome.


Oh, and Happy rest of the new year now that you're done. Keep up that kindness thing. It's worth it.