Resolving To Be Resolute

As is customary on the first day of the year I intend to make some resolutions in order to stop being the rubbish version of me that the world has come to know and instead become a really good version of me. Maybe even to become the best me that I can be. But that does seem quite ambitious, and also wouldn’t leave me with anywhere to go next year. So it’s probably more realistic to aim to be a version of me that is a little bit better than the current version, but with enough room for improvement that I can still make some resolutions this time next year.

In the past I haven’t taken this annual pledge to self-betterment particularly seriously. Although last year my predictions about 2020 were unerringly accurate. Alarmingly so given that I wrote that entire post as a joke. So I’ll be more careful about predicting the doom of humanity this year. In all honesty that ship may already have sailed anyway. But it wouldn’t hurt to be a touch more optimistic, just in case last year’s post wasn’t a massive coincidence and I do actually have the power to accidently predict the future.

It’s not easy to come up with proper resolutions though. There are myriad ways in which I could be better than I currently am, but they do all seem to require some sort of effort on my part. And I’m not sure I really want to have to try to be better. I’d rather just take it easy, watch an undemanding box-set and have another slice of cake.

But rules are rules and I am obliged to commit to some sort of lifestyle change in order to be a more worthwhile member of the human race. So here are my official resolutions for 2021:

1. Start to believe in myself. Obviously I already believe in myself, insofar as I’m quite certain that I exist. I don’t think I’m the tooth fairy or anything mad like that. But maybe I don’t always believe in my capacity to succeed and if watching bad movies has taught me anything it’s that the key to success is blind self-belief in spite of overwhelming evidence of likely failure. When I was in school I briefly had a supply teacher covering my history class and he told us that he truly believed that anyone could achieve whatever they set their mind to. Which was pretty inspirational stuff, although I can only conclude that he didn’t want to achieve the status of permanent employment because he wasn’t with us for very long at all.
2. Learn how to fly. Once I’ve achieved the target of ‘believing in myself’, it seems only logical that I use that self-belief to achieve something that I never thought was possible. And I currently don’t believe that I could ever learn to fly. So hopefully that’ll change soon.
3. Ignore the naysayers. Obviously a key factor in self-improvement is to not let anyone trample on your dreams. Like the kind of people who say “You definitely can’t fly James, come away from the ledge”. I definitely won’t be listening to those people in 2021!

Ok, that’s that box ticked. Now I can get on with the rest of my day. Which seems likely to involve mindless TV and excess calories.