New Year or just the same old thing?

Okay, new year, resolution time. The signs have popped up everywhere – New year, New you. Weight loss, new job, education opportunities, new haircut, you name it. Oh boy, here we go. Fine, let the insanity begin. I’ve got two friends who’ve made resolutions having to do with getting rid of little foibles they have. The first has this habit of patting everyone on the arm. It’s not harmful, dangerous or at least in my humble opinion, even slightly annoying. However, she wasn’t even aware she was doing this until one fine day some idiot told her that she kept tapping his arm twice to make her points. He said it kind of bothered him. Well, that was only because he's a moron and was losing the argument. Thus, he decided to make things personal. However, she didn’t see it this way. She was hurt and began to wonder how many other people she’d bothering for years with this little tick of hers. Thus, she’s decided to eliminate this tapping now that she’s conscious she’s even doing it in the first place. I tried to convince her I found this action of hers rather comforting. Nothing doing. Now my second friend has this boss who’s always interrupting her, speaking over her, belittling her, and in general making her feel like her voice isn’t important. Thus, over the years, she’s developed this habit of starting every other sentence with “All I was trying to say was…” She does this with everyone, not just her boss because he’s ruined her self-confidence. Not good. Anyway, a few people have started to point how annoying it is for her to keep saying this. Personally, I think only her boss has made mention of this little quirk of hers. I could be wrong on that. So this year, she’s decided to stop saying this. Ugh, if it were me, my resolution would be to find a new job where I’d be respected and valued. But hey, that’s just me. So there I sat over the weekend having coffee with these two friends and they were expecting me to a) praise them for being brave enough to make these changes in their lives and b) to share what I’m going to do differently this next year. However, all I could think was, why do resolutions fail? Because they’re often about changing something we shouldn’t be changing. Or trying to change because someone has mocked you for being you. Who cares if you’re going eat better, sleep more, exercise more. Who cares if you have a foible or a little tic. We all have something like that! Instead, let’s try to challenge ourselves, stretch ourselves, grow. Get out of our comfort zone, do something different, do something no one saw coming. Travel to some exotic place no one you know has ever even heard of, much less been too. Learn a new hobby and turn it into a new career. Volunteer for some organization you would never dream of going to in the first place. Make this the year of the unexpected not the year of the same ol’ same ol’. Surprise even yourself. You never know, it might just be the best year of your life – even if everything seems to go wrong and it looks like a disaster…