By now, most of you have broken your New Year’s resolutions.
It’s nothing to feel too bad about; you’ve got, or are going to have, lots of company. Studies show that only about 12 per cent of the people that make New Year’s resolutions actually attain their goal.
The whole concept of a New Year’s resolution is a recipe for failure. Trying to make a resolution to change your life for the better while intoxicated, on a sugar high from all the Christmas goodies, stressed out by the holiday season or a combination of all three.
Not surprisingly, health-oriented resolutions top both the lists of most popular and most-broken resolutions. Getting fit, losing weight, quitting smoking (people still smoke?) are all in there, as is drinking less, though that seems to place much lower on most lists.
The middle tier of resolutions seems to revolve around lifestyle changes. Spend more time with friends and family, get out of debt or learn something new, that kind of thing. And getting organized — often the key to making any resolution work out.
Sadly though, helping others is most often near the bottom of lists of resolutions. Sad, because incredible changes could arise if we all cooperated on a helping others type of resolution. For instance, think about what would happen if we all resolved to increase our donations to the local food banks, or your favourite charity, by just one dollar a month.
Easy enough to do, and guess what, if only a third of Summerland population followed through on it, roughly $45,000 more aid would be flowing into the coffers of local charities and service groups.
But even through the statistics show we are unlikely to follow through on our resolutions, we keep making them, hoping to shape a better life and a better world.
