Don’t Rely on the New Year

Happy January, friends! I have yet to buy a 2018 calendar, so I feel awash in time, like I’m unmoored just past the last buoy. In early January, it always seems like everything is new, untouched, wide open with possibility. New Year’s resolutions have yet to be broken, the whole year looms ahead, and you can do anything you put your mind to! Or can you? The radio said something like 95% of New Year resolutions are broken before the end of January. I forget the exact psychology, but I read something once that said you should never try a new habit at an expected time, i.e., you shouldn’t say “I’ll start this in the new year” or even on a Monday. Something about giving yourself too much time to talk yourself out of it (or talk yourself into how you’ll fail again). Something about how it becomes too easy to give up the first time you fail. I dunno. Not my area of expertise. I’m not one for resolutions, which in some ways is a good thing. Because it seems like every few years, something comes along right at the new year that makes it hard to turn over new leaves. This year I’m sick. And I’ve been sick for about three weeks now. Not dangerously sick, but lingering sick. I lost my voice for a week, which was not awesome, and rehearsal for a musical I’m supposed to be doing started this past Saturday, but I cannot currently…

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