By Dessa Bayrock and Jessica Wind (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: January 9, 2013
In which the power team of Dessa Bayrock and Jess Wind, hereby known as #WINDROCK, tackle the idea, ideals, and ideology of New Year’s Resolutions. In the words of the great poet R. Kelly, “I believe I can fly.” But can we?
DB: New Year’s Eve is kind of like a birthday for a whole year. Which makes sense, considering how drunk we all got. But you know what doesn’t make sense? New Year’s resolutions. Does anyone actually follow them through?
JW: Considering the gym is packed in January and then enthusiasm peters out, I would say no. Hell, I even wrote my resolutions down last year and I still failed to exercise.
DB: I have personally never been to the gym. Ever. But I have a friend who usually exercises regularly, and she says she loves January, because it’s the one month she skips the gym completely. You know why? Because otherwise it is too much work to deal with all the people who have made resolutions to “go to the gym.” By February things are back to normal.
JW: Empty promises to our muscles aside, do you think there’s a way to make resolutions work? Is it the kind of resolutions? Or how we go about them? Or is the whole idea of deciding to change your life on the most hung-over day of the year just ridiculous?
DB: We have to start looking at the whole resolution deal differently – I don’t know about you, but the resolutions I make towards self-improvement are the ones that fail. Exercise more? Yeah, no. Eat more vegetables? Yeah, no. Maybe we should be taking a more whimsical approach to things, or at least a less idealistic approach.
JW: I agree that the less idealistic approach is necessary, but all resolutions need at least some logic behind them. I may not have gone to the gym last year, but my resolutions weren’t a complete waste.
DB: Go on.
JW: I did a bunch of saving, and the guy and I committed to at least one date night a month. Scored a couple Whitecaps games and a trip to Victoria out of that one. My secret? A paper napkin. We wrote all of our resolutions down and pinned them to the wall. They stared at us for all 365 days of 2012.
DB: Yeah, it’s one of those things that you have to face up to every day or it’s too easy to forget about. I’ll start tomorrow. I’ll start next week. What were my resolutions again?
Then again, want to know my secret? I didn’t actually make any resolutions last year. Don’t think I missed a thing.
JW: But did anything change?
DB: No. But did it have to?
JW: Maybe not for you, but for us we knew that the wrath of student loans were upon us, so the money thing mattered. If we didn’t have that White Spot napkin reminding us to pay off some debt, we’d be screwed.
DB: See, I have a philosophy that things that need to be taken care of will, eventually, be taken care of one way or the other. So I tend to not stress about it. Which I’m sure will bite me in the ass one day, but for now . . . Hakuna Matata?
JW: If I followed Disney philosophies I would be waiting in a tower for my prince to rescue me. Also, Simba faces his past in the end.
DB: But for now I’m eating bugs and seeing my father in the sky . . . I think this metaphor may have gotten away from me. But in any case, I feel like I need to recognize that I never, ever follow through on resolutions – be they whimsical or idealistic. I never go to the gym. I never buy a yoga mat, let alone use the damn thing. One year I resolved to go on a train, because I’ve never been on a train. Nope. Still never been on a train. I think it’s pretty key to know thyself. I think it’s something you have to know about yourself – if resolutions are going to work for you or not. You + husband + napkin proved that you can make it work – so what are you trying to accomplish this year?
JW: Agreed. Knowing yourself is key. There were about 10 resolutions on the napkin. We were crazy to think we’d get them all done. The beauty of a logical approach is that we can simply roll over to the new year. We have resolved to budget again, among other things. I know, we’re daredevils. The only person standing in between a successful new year’s resolution and a failure is you.
DB: Or a debilitating sense of Hakuna Matata. I mean, am I really all that unfit? Naw. I’ll just get rid of these freshmen 15 after I graduate . . . that’ll work.
JW: Hop on a train and you’re set.
DB: Touché.
Join us next time when we have another powerhouse discussion (perhaps on the subject of Valentines Day??) that will similarly mix seriousness and Disney references. Will there be trains? Will there be clichés? Stay tuned! For now, dear reader – #WINDROCK OUT.
