
Optimism is all well and good, but many of you get a little carried away at this time of the year with your resolutions. Perhaps it’s the promise of a fresh start, or the regret that comes with an epic New Year’s hangover. For whatever reason, you simply set the bar impossibly high for yourselves in the coming year. More often than not, your credit card bills for holiday spending haven’t even arrived before most of your resolutions have already been shot to hell.
A wise (and impossibly upbeat, annoying) person would suggest that every day is a new beginning; that we can each strive to just be a better person every morning. It’s a pretty good idea to resolve to stay away from people like that. It may prove to be a tough promise to keep, especially for those of you in twelve step programs or Turkish prisons.
Here now, are some typically unachievable New Year’s resolutions with saner alternatives. You can resolve to thank me later. In an effort to show how to set and achieve resolutions, I’ve resolved to use old photos from previous posts to illustrate this one. Done and done.
Resolution #1: Renew your gym membership / Exercise regularly

Problem: Gym memberships pose many problems. For one thing, the obligatory monthly payments and over-priced juice bars may derail financial management resolutions you may be considering (refer to Resolution 3 below). There’s also a good chance you haven’t been to the gym since the last time you made this hollow promise about twelve months ago. A slim possibility exists that the gym has folded and the lease was taken over by a do-it-yourself dog-grooming enterprise. It’s still recommended that you wipe down the equipment when done.
1 PP Resolution Solution: Change your perspective. By most standards, you’re over-weight and about as active as an arthritic tree sloth, but compared to some folks, you’re the picture of health and living an active lifestyle. Resolve to spend more time in cemeteries. Next to the dead, you’ll probably look pretty fit. While you’re there, you might as well walk around a little.
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Resolution #2: Eat a healthier diet / Lose weight

Problem: A healthier diet will almost certainly include more fruits, dark green leafy vegetabley things and less processed junk. You’re on a first-name basis with the people in the window at the local drive-thru. The produce clerks at the local health food co-op shift their glances nervously between you and the AED every time they see you lumbering down the aisle.
1 PP Resolution Solution: What really matters in life? Looking good and treating your body like a temple, or having friends? Buy a fistful of scratch-off lottery tickets for your friends at Jack-In-The-Box and nurture your fellowship with that bunch of zany kids! Those cucumber waxers over at Whole Foods were never going to be your pals anyway.
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Resolution #3: Get out of debt / Improve your financial management

Problem: Committing yourself to improving your money situation won’t get you a raise down at The Kraft Shak. There’s no need for a calculator to figure out that even going without food and shelter, you couldn’t pay off those credit cards before next year’s resolutions.
1 PP Resolution Solution: Financial experts agree that diversification of investments is key. If it works for Jimmy Buffett’s rich uncle Warren, it should work for you too. So when you buy those scratch-offs, make sure you get a wide variety of them. Bonus Hint: Use a key to scratch off the ticket, having loose coins around will only encourage frivolous spending.
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Resolution #4: Do more for others / Be a better citizen of the world

Problem: Let’s face it, volunteering is not as much fun as you thought it would be. The pay is even less than you what you clear at The Kraft Shak. In addition, soup kitchens and Habitat for Humanity building sites are teeming with those wildly optimistic, happy-pants yahoos we all agreed to avoid in the beginning of this post.
1 PP Resolution Solution: First of all, you need to steer clear of late night TV ads which result in you donating pennies a day to the orphaned kittens of Botswana. I mean really, how much of your 12 cents do really think goes to those scrawny little tabbies? If you’re still hell-bent on doing good, you can come over here and rake my yard or shovel my driveway without me having to drop hints over and over again. There might even be a cup of cocoa in it for you, but I’m not making any promises.
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Resolution #5: Improve your attitude and coping strategies

Problem: Dealing with the challenges the world throws your way is what life is all about. You know that getting passed over for the assistant head checker position down at the Crap Shak shouldn’t have mattered so much, but you ended up sulking for weeks. How the hell can you expected to be happy and upbeat when the world keeps dumping out second helpings of poop on your plate?
1PP Resolution Solution: If you’ve followed my sage advice thus far, you’re probably reading this as you sit on a tombstone, eating a Jum-Bo-Valu meal amid the sad clutter of losing lottery tickets and dead flowers. As if that isn’t bad enough, your back is sore from doing gratis yard work over at Casa del One-Point (For future reference, bring your own rake next time – I’m not running a lending library here). My final bit of wisdom is that you stop making promises which will inevitably end in you disappointing yourself.
You’re quite welcome.
Gawd, Dave. This is fabulous – and right up my alley. I am going to endeavor to recycle more in the coming year (or plagiarize if necessary). I loved the shoe pic then, and love it still. I can’t draw worth crap, so am always envious of talent like yours. Here’s hoping 2015 has fewer 2nd helpings of poop and more reasonable alternatives like you have suggested.
Right back at you sister! I’m actually making a few resolutions, and hoping I don’t abandon them before Valentine’s Day.
I’ll be down in March – leave the porch light on.
Woot Woot – I’ll even leave the SUN on for you!!
Great! I’ll need it by March. Rumor has it there’s a polar vortex coming to make last year’s look like a piker.
Also, in my feeble attempts to reply, I unsubscribed to your blog…these damned hands won’t do my bidding. So I re-subscribed. Just in case you are one of those freakish “followers” counters.
I saw that you’re following me again. I certainly hope you haven’t missed too many of my recent posts – they’ve been well received by the critics and littered with “likes” from people in the know. (Well…not really)
I managed to read most of them…just hadn’t the strength or ability to respond (some of those damned meds completely wiped out my ability to say or do much of anything!) I had to severely limit the number of blogs I did read, but you were in the core group!
Sorry to hear you’ve been reading my posts – I was hoping to fool you into thinking you’d actually missed something!
Darling…Sold the barn…working hard to improve image…combed my hair…meet me at corner…bring coffee…still deep…you need to wear those boots…yes, those ones. Later.
You sold the barn?! But my shovel collection! The memories!! I’m crestfallen, but at least we can still enjoy some coffee.
Bah humbug…damn it, wrong holiday.
It’s the thought that counts. I hear they’re hiring down at the Kraft Shak, if you’re interested.
Thanks, but I already have a job at The Doobie Factory.
I’m pretty sure the bennies are much better at The Doobie Factory.
You would be correct. I have my own unicorn.
Unicorn you say!? That beats the hell out of a 10% employee discount on do-it-yourself dried flower arranging supplies.
I’ll put in a good word for you.
Awesome. All very spot on, except i think those would be Whole Foods cucumber DE-waxers.
You’re probably right, unless they’re waxing the cukes with organic free-trade beeswax.
This is brilliant. Thanks for doing this so I don’t have to. I’ve taken all your advice to heart and the best part of all? I can do YOUR resolutions in MY new pajamas.
Double bonus points.
Happy New Year back at you, Dave!
xo
Careful, Girl! Sitting on a tomb stone in ur jammies can get ur tushie chilly.
I live up north.
They’re thermal.
Don’t ruin my fantasies with talk of thermal teddies!
We don’t want that!
[delete thermal and replace with lacey]
Done and done.
I made a promise not to promise any resolutions except of course the one promise to resolve all past promises. Now I am going to make a good ‘Act of Contrition’ and put $5 into the pretty ladies G-string. That should bring me some good “New Years Absolutions.”
Five bucks! ! Hey big spender! !
Yeh. I know. I was out of $1s.
Please, no rolled coins!
You must know about “the amazing change machine.”
I’m doing what I did last year, I resolve not to have any resolutions (except for eating a pop tart a day and skipping the gym, those I can keep)
Love this list!
That’s why I’m here Allie! If you hit on one of those scratch-offs, just remember who gave you that free advice!
I was a bit disappointed to see that the woman pictured in high heels at the gym didn’t have any weight on the bar. (Plenty of lifting of other heavy objects…just not weights.) I would have been much more impressed if she had managed at least more than the 10 pound bar while doing squats.
Not to imply that I’ve spent copious amounts of time studying that pic, but I think she’s lifting a bar which is attached to cables which are likely crossing pulleys to weights somewhere else for the resistance. Irrespective of the amount of physical work she’s doing, she does get partial credit for doing it in heels that my wife wouldn’t wear with a gun you her head.
Hah. I am glad that you managed to note the details of the mechanics of the photo. I think I spent way too much time judging the girl who wore something so insane to supposedly work out in. I compliment your wife on her good sense: in footwear and husbands!
She’s definitely not going to make the same mistake in footwear that she made in her choice of husbands (that’s right, I’m a big heel).
Happy New Year PP and thank you for taking care of this for me, it’s one less thing for me to do. I am not making any resolutions …. none …. nada.
I’m resolving to nor make any resolutions. I suppose by making that resolution, I’ve already failed.
Thanks for doing all the heavy lifting for me. I’m especially glad you pointed out that switching to the co-op would be like taking greasy burger meat out of the very mouths of the children of the deserving people down at Jack-in-the-Box. I couldn’t live with myself if that happened.
Hope 2015 is a fab year for you, Dave. I know this will go down as the Year Of the 1-Point FP because you got the chops, dude!
I suppose it would iimprove my chances of getting freshly pressed again if I posted more than once every other month.
Reminds me of a grade 6 student in my PE class who cried, “What is the point of trying when there’s no hope!” Happy New Year.