RESOLUTIONS OR REVOLT?

`````It's so embarassing; the fact that I could find my notebooks from every year---and the same lists would be there. The ways in which I plan on improving my life, on fixing myself, on turning things around. I know I'm not the only person who does this. In fact, it's the first week or so that makes or breaks many a fitness club. They sell one year memberships to clientele, who join up with the best of intentions. If you wait about a month, great deals can be found on little used exercise equipment.

`````For people who succumb to "all or nothing" thinking, it's a trap. Because, if you eat just one cookie too much, you've blown it. You might as well go all hog and order a pizza to go with it and chow down. Then you wait for the next "marker" to start fresh---next Monday, for example. It really is crazy making.

`````There has to be different sorts of resolutions out there---ones I want to call "revolts." A way to totally alter my approach to my life. I always hide in the background. I forever rehearse what I want to say in my head before I say it; it's as though I'm running a teleprompter in my skull when I'm having a conversation. I'm never actually in the moment because of it. This needs to stop. I have to start being present and just talk.

`````I want to try to read a different poem every day. In doing so, maybe I'll accidentally come upon one of those magical lines that speaks to me, the way the ending of "The Great Gatsby" does.

`````I want to use Google Street View and just plunk it down on any old place, once a day, and see where I end up. I'll start with the United States and Canada, as it might be a place I can do a road trip. If it looks interesting, I'll read up on it. There's so many places I know nothing about.

`````I want to pick up foreign phrases and toss it into my conversation. Youtube allows me to do that. Once or twice a week, I want to find foreign conversation on there.

`````I really need to start letting people know what they mean to me. I'm so bad at expressing my feelings that I've been called sociopathic (and that's by my good friend). Expressing it after the fact, to myself, in a journal, does little good.

`````There's more that will come to me. It has to be better then torturing myself over not weighing what one of the Olsen twins does. A revolt sounds much more exciting than a resolution.