Resolutions I Can Keep

As people are wont to do at this time of year, I feel it necessary to establish a New Year’s Resolution of some sort. There are ways in which I can better myself, and the beginning of a new year is a fine time to wipe the slate clean and start anew. Also, I know 2013 started three days ago – punctuality would be a solid choice for a resolution, but I am what I am in some respects.

One of my main goals for the next cycle around the sun is a holdover from last year: I have to keep losing weight. Discussed several times over in this space, my weight loss effort last year was a great success. If I manage to lose half of what I lost last year, I will have hit my stated goal with this attempt and that…that will be a good day. We will dine on beer and steak, two things have been less involved in my life of late than I would prefer.

The other two things I resolve to do are a bit more touchy, one because I don’t think I can do it and the other because it may cause some strife amongst people:

1.       I resolve to be more patient with others.

Those that know me probably think this an unlikely proposition at best – I don’t do patience, especially not with other people, or stupid people, or people that are not me and dammit you people should really try to be better crap no let me try this again.

(This is hard.)

It’s not that I don’t understand the flaws of others, especially since I am more flawed than most mammals. I just have a problem with incompetence, and my problem is that that the incompetence of others usually becomes a big problem for me (if that makes sense). In attempting to be more friendly and approachable and less likely to snarl at passerby, I will make a conscious effort to not snap at people for no reason. Please don’t test me on this.

This resolution will come into direct conflict, probably on a daily basis with the other hard-to-keep resolution, which is…

2.       I resolve to eliminate the stupid.

If you know me, you may not know that I actually don’t like you at all. Obviously this isn’t the case for all of you, but if you’ve come into my life thanks only to someone that I actually do like and are trying to facilitate some sort of horseshit ‘friendship’ that I’ve reciprocated only because I don’t like hurting feelings…just know that there’s been a change in management’s policy and we are no longer playing pretend.

I’m not doing this to be mean; it’s a matter of self-preservation. At this moment, I have a wife, a dog, 11 ‘very good friends’, 30-odd ‘enjoyable acquaintances’ and then there’s everyone else. The wife and dog win more often than not; from August to May, I spend quite a bit of time away from them and my home and I like my home. I’m on a mission to eliminate the nights and moments I’m away from them – or people I really want to hang out with – because I’m on some altruistic mission to make nice with somebody I don’t care about as much. Life’s too short. I apologize if you feel as though you’ve been convicted of something without trial, since it seems like I’m condemning people as bad friends or boring or failing to live up to invisible standards I’m setting for people I care about – while that’s not my intention and it’s certainly not fair, life isn’t always very fair. Chances are, if you’re on my not-as-important list, I’m also on yours and we’d both rather be hanging out with other people anyway.

(Addendum: Please don’t ask me what category you fall into, since that may put me in the unfortunate position of having to lie in order to spare feelings.)

Also, if you spend a great deal of time being a self-important jack hole or soul-crushingly depressing when I’m around you/see your Facebook/read your Tweets, know that there’s only room for one narcissistic asshole in my life, and it’s me. I can’t always be trying to out-smarm people, I’ve got to get some work done on occasion. These blogs don’t write themselves.

Speaking of, thanks to all that read/enjoy these blogs. Well, enjoy may be a strong word – I can’t say for certain that anyone enjoys them. But if you do (and I hope you do), know that I love writing them, plan to eventually do something bigger with them and appreciate the compliments. And if you don’t, to quote The Dude…

Enjoy 2013.