PERSONAL SAFETY A New Year means a new bucket list

Resolutions: Our annual attempt for the Holy Grail continues into a New Year

STAY SAFE

Steve Rose is a retired Sandy Springs Police Captain, veteran Fulton County police officer and freelance writer. He is the author the book “Why Do My Mystic Journeys Always Lead to the Waffle House?” and the column “View from a Cop.”

For more than 20 years, my January Crime-Prevention Newsletter always opened with a paragraph that this would be the year we would finally shore up our home and business security and begin enhancing our personal security with the goal of becoming victim-free in the new year. In the months following, I think that I read as many theft, burglary, and robbery reports as I had before the new year kicked in.

Such is the trend with New Year’s resolutions. According to Forbes Magazine, each year more than 50% of people make the annual resolution to lose weight, quit smoking, save money, work out and/or get promoted at work. Most say the failure rate is 80% or more.

This should be no surprise to anyone who, while nursing a New Year’s hangover, made their first resolution of the new year: never drink this much again.

The article went on to say one reason most fail is that we were not that emotionally committed to the goal in the first place. The fact we pick Jan. 1 to be the date to start this new “you” becomes a product of peer pressure and self-pressure to do something. To say, “I have no resolutions for the new year” implies that we have an inflated sense of self-importance to the point that we feel no need to improve ourselves or that we’re too pitiful to give it a go in the first place.

The other reason for failure is that the goals we set were not that important in the first place, so the motivation wasn’t really there. The article suggested that one should have a greater benefit than themselves. For example, resolve to make more money so your child can attend private school, or so your trophy wife could get those enhancements she keeps talking about. Motivation comes in several forms.

I think you need to choose your resolutions carefully. Resolving to lose weight in January is tough because most folks aren’t as active in the cold months as they are in the spring and summer. Food seems to be more appealing than in hotter temperatures.

Going to the gym makes absolute sense until it’s time to get up, get dressed, get in the car, and actually go. It’s almost designed to fail.

Writers make the same resolution each year. Write more, take more time to write, attend workshops, take part in writing groups, find an agent, freelance more and finish that inevitable “novel.” No pressure at all.

Getting older means my resolution goals need to adapt to what is achievable and practical to me. My first resolution last year was to do away with “resolutions” and instead transition to “bucket lists.” To me, to accomplish a “bucket-list” item gives greater satisfaction.

For instance, my wife and I said for years that we’d like to try skydiving. Talk, talk, talk. I realized that I didn’t want to get to the point where I’m saying “Gee, I really wish I’d done that, but now it’s too late.” So, while my wife was taking a golf lesson, something else we’d talked about but never did, I signed us up to go skydiving.

The two of us went up 14,000 feet and jumped out of an airplane with a couple of instructors who looked like they’d been following the Grateful Dead for years. We flew through the air at 120 mph, then literally floated through clouds for a few minutes.

When we walked away, I said, “I’m glad we did that.”

Another item on the list was to learn to play the drums. Again, talk, talk, talk. Finally, as I was firmly headed to my 69th birthday, I said to myself, “Heck with it. I’ll buy them,” so, I bought a Roland electronic drum kit, a good one at that, and began learning to play.

What I learned after a few months was that I had the drumming skills of a block of wood.

The drums soon were sold to someone else who had that desire. In the end, I said to myself, “I’m glad I tried it and I’m pretty sure my wife is glad I sold them.” For 2021, I accomplished two goals, two more resolutions than I usually had accomplished in the past. It’s a system that works for me.

So, good luck on your resolutions for 2022. Maybe this is the year for us because I too made one resolution beginning this month: be less sarcastic. Yep. And if you know me, you probably won’t bet on my making it, but here we go.

Steve Rose and his wife join a group boarding an airplane to go skydiving

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