I knew when I decided to take on 10 resolutions (11, actually. Totally forgot to put “floss every day” in there) that it wasn’t going to be easy. I knew that a couple were going to be broken and I told myself that when that happened, I would keep trying. One of the biggest problems with New Year resolutions for myself and a lot of other people is that once you have that one cigarette, that one cupcake, that one spoonful of heroin, you throw your arms up in the air and say “well, better luck next year!” People give up after the first shot not realizing that failure is an important part of the process of improvement.



I’m proud to report that I really mastered the “failure” part of the improvement process last week completely.



Seven. Fucking seven. I broke seven of my resolutions in less than seven goddamn days. Again, I knew that this wasn’t going to be easy but seven? What the fuck?



Granted, a few of those were due to the fact that I got a terrible cold on January 2nd. I had the whole fever/chills/dizzyness/sore throat/stuffy nose package and I had to work. I missed a blog, really didn’t feel like working out and just ate whatever was in front of me. Just sitting around and sniffling was boring so I played some flash games on my laptop.


That’s four right there.



Some of the stuff was just unconscious. Sitting in a training class at work I didn’t even realize that I was biting my thumbnail until I was halfway through the damn thing.



There’s five.



Haven’t called my parents since New Year’s eve. Gonna do that today and really, once a week’s not bad but I’m still counting that as six.



Finally, some things are just Pavlovian. A conditioned response. You’ve trained yourself to do it so much that it’s not even a reaction so much as a reflex. Like yesterday when I was sitting on the couch with my wife and I farted. Didn’t try to fart, one just kind of sneaked up on me. I did what I had done a million times before and pumped my fist up in the air in victory and said “yeah!” when Jena gave me a look and said “really? it hasn’t even been a week?”



She probably couldn’t tell you my other resolutions to save her life but she remembered this one. It’s burned into her mind. She’s got a personal stake in this one. And that was seven.



This is all fine. Failure’s an important part of the process. I’m learning. Master Bruce is falling down. I’m getting over the cold now and fully aware of the things I do without realizing it. I am totally going to do all of these.



Or at least just break six or fewer resolutions this week.