happy resolution-free new year

to say that the new year 2008 started happy for me would be incorrect. because it was the old year that ended happy, giving way to a rather happy new year. of course, owing to the fact that we decided to go on a holiday a couple of days before the new year began. which in due course will no longer be new, but hopefully happy.

in coorg, with my family, i had a blast doing all the things i would’ve normally enjoyed doing. river crossing, rafting, eating, cuddling my little one to my heart’s content, sight seeing, driving, dancing, etc. (i won't explain the etc.). except sleeping that is. i have no complaints. except for the obscene amount we spent. yeah, there’s always an ‘except’. even in the happy, perfect new year.

of course, perfect means nothing. if i look outside the four rather small walls of my own life. the moment i read the paper (a rare moment indeed), i find out about the random deaths caused by some maniacal middle aged woman, for a sum of money, we casually spent in 2 days at coorg. then you hear of the people who literally danced their way to death as the dance floor caved into the swimming pool. the fact that a few loved ones just missed drowning to their deaths in that pool made the news enlarge my tightly stretched rose coloured walls, leaving an ugly crack in the process.

so is the new year a little less happy, apart from being a little less new? not sure, as death need not necessarily mean a bad thing, according to what a friend recently wrote rather eloquently, which i wish i had the permission to publish. but happiness is, i believe, what we all strive for, in general?

i made a resolution a few years back to be happy. my memory fails me as it does when i need it the most, but i’m quite positive i didn’t live up to the resolution. i then decided to make tangible, quantifiable resolutions so that at the end of the year, i could look back and pat myself on the back, or kick myself on the backside, as the case may be. but more importantly, a resolution that i would remember at the end of the year. such a resolution has happened but once. and i’m proud to say that i patted myself on the back at the end of that year, and every year since. new year resolutions do not end at the end of the year and are made to be for the rest of your life. after all, you can’t quit smoking on jan 1st 2007 and then start it again 365 days later, ‘cause, hey, that was last year’s resolution. unless, of course, your 2008 resolution is to start smoking.

but in general, barring hardened hedonists, resolutions are things that go against the grain of who we are and what we do. and who we are and what we do, are normally not things that we are very proud of. and hence, the need for resolutions, 'casue hey, that's what's 'right'. and that goes against the grain of what makes us happy. for the moment at least. people smoke ‘cause it gives them, what, pleasure? not really. it’s a habit that they’re addicted to. and addictions form because the habit is oh so good, and basically makes the person happy physically, mentally, emotionally, psychologically, metaphysically, or most often just in a plain silly way. and resolutions are made to correct that habit, and make one a little less happy. so why do people make resolutions to make one less happy on a ‘happy’ new year? so that they even out eventually and we can continue our boring, bland lives, perhaps?

p.s. i have made no resolutions this year and have decided not to screw up my perfectly happy/happily perfect life.