Enough with the resolutions

 I almost didn't make a New Year's resolution this year.  

But it feels so, so (so) strange to me NOT to make one.  That's not peer pressure speaking, it's totally a core part within the deepest parts of me that always wants to plan things out.  In fact, I just this year wrapped up a 10-year plan I'd started (not surprisingly) a decade ago, and I was kind of astounded by how amazingly well I'd adhered to it.   A book I'd contemplated writing happened a year later than expected; a triathlon happened a year earlier.  The calendar ticked over to 2021, and my plan said, "retire or become dean", and I checked off "dean", and the plan clicked shut.

I am such a planner that I tend to make New Year's resolutions not once, but twice each year: once as we begin a new calendar year, and again as we begin a new academic year.  I love making resolutions, and I love carrying them out.

But this year, I've felt adrift.  Maybe it's because the 10-year plan snapped together so neatly, and I really don't know what will happen as my dean years bounce along the ruts of the academic avenue and turn hard left into the Retirement Road.  Maybe it's because the usual resolutions (get in shape! eat well!) have already been nailed so firmly into place in my daily habits.  The truth is, I really haven't been sure what -- if anything -- I want to try to resolve.

And yet, and yet.  And yet.  I love pointing my head in some direction and having the rest of me follow along toward some new territory.   Being resolution-less has made me a tad antsy, and by "tad" I mean "extremely".  I found myself mulling this over while walking with my daughter, while running with my friends, while meditating, while getting ready for bed, while planning out my daily tasks, . . . and I finally figured out a resolution that makes me very, very . . . um . . . curious.  Resolute.  Reso-curious?

Experts say a good resolution is "SMART" (Specific, Measurable, And Random oTher words I forget).  Mine is kind of the opposite of all that.  Here's my 2022 resolution:

Avoid solutions that are in search of a problem.

I'm not entirely sure what it means, and that's kind of why I like it.  I first said it to myself when I was boxing up some packing paper and finding a place for it in a storage closet, because (?) maybe someday I'd need to pack something in paper (?).  And then I started trying to imagine what kinds of things I might mail, just so I could use this paper.  And then I realized I was making space for this paper (a solution), and using this to stash to try to drum up a problem I don't have (packing and mailing stuff).  So I moved the whole box down to the basement, together with other packing materials that we share with a church rummage sale or that we give away on Freecycle.   I'm going to avoid keeping this paper that's a solution to a problem I don't have and don't want to have, either.

I'm not sure what else my resolution might apply to, but it sounds so right.  To say it another way, just having the resolution, knowing that it's mine, makes me feel less rudderless.  This little sentence ("avoid solutions that are in search of a problem") reminds me somewhat of the mantra I often use when my to-do lists get long: "people are more important than things".  It's a way to make sense of and value of the choices I need to make.

But because that 2022 Res is also so very . . . inscrutable . . .,  I think it'll be a great resolution for me right now when I really don't know what exactly I want to happen in my life in the next 5 years.   A "SMART" resolution would have the most chance of success at moving me from point A to point B, but I'm ready for a resolution that allows me to open the front door at point A and then just go exploring.   

It's enough of a resolution, and so I like it. Happy new year to us all.