It’s that special time of year, again. The time when people traditionally make promises to themselves to quit smoking, quit drinking, eat better, maybe exercise. The time when people guiltily review all the things they promised to themselves the year before and realize they did none of them. So, the classic new year’s resolutions are reinstated and once again an effort is made to better oneself.

My friend Pete made the same new year’s resolution annually. Pete had a bit of a speech impediment. He didn’t stutter or stammer or lisp, though. His problem was every second word out of his mouth was not fit for polite conversation. So, every January, he attempted to stop swearing. It normally lasted a day. One year, it lasted just a few hours. By the time he got to work, he was already beet red and sputtering.
“What happened?”
“I was making my turn and the this f-ing stupid s-head m-fer drove right into my f-ing truck and knocked my f-ing bumper clean off into a damn snowbank.”
“Did anyone get hurt?”
“Who gives a flying f**k? I could’ve *** down his ugly ***** head and **** his *** to his ******* ******, the filthy ****** ***** ) ***!”
You get the idea.

Last year, my resolution was to finish my workbench and maybe keep it clean. Well, I can take a moment to laugh heartily at that.

My workbench is still one hundred percent covered. Now, I have an acceptable excuse. I did have it cleared off but used it to compile ten ready-to-assemble Advance Box Joint Jig kits. I simply have not yet moved them off the bench.
The bench, however, did not see any structural changes over the past year. I would like to make it more useful but it’s difficult to do that when it’s always in use.

Frankly, I had too much happen over the past year to worry about such things. And, given I can’t really predict what will happen this coming year, I should just accept that anything I resolve to do will probably not get done. However, that doesn’t mean I should not make plans. There are a few hundred projects that need completion around the house. Most of them, actually, need to be started before they can be finished. And the more time passes, the greater the list becomes. But I’ve been far too busy with my daily exercise regime to get anything like that done.
Time to laugh again.

“Do you ever exercise?” I asked Pete.
“What? Do you ever do your nails?”
Pete could’ve used some jogging, though.

The worst undone resolutions result in regret. So, the best way to avoid the bad feeling of not having done something important is to never promise to do it. Well, either that or actually do it. And perhaps that is what we should all be thinking as we start a new year. Maybe we should not dwell on the things we have not yet done but think only of the important things we should do. Let’s face it: if we didn’t do it last year, it probably wasn’t as important as we thought it was.