Resolutions for Everyone

It is the decidedly annoying time of year when people decide to make New Year's Resolutions about the things they want to change. Most people decide to lose weight, quit smoking, or handle their money better. And most of them don't really change anything past the first week or so. I think it's time we evaluate the idea of resolutions and come up with some things that might actually work. I'll talk about that more in a later post. Tonight, I want to talk about the things I wish everyone would commit to doing.

RESOLUTIONS FOR EVERYONE.

In 2014, how about we all commit to doing the following:

• I resolve not to be an asshole.  I will not be rude to other people. I will not bully other people. In fact, I will do my best to be as pleasant as possible.  It may not be in my nature to be decent, but I'm going to try. Being an asshole to everyone is getting me no where in life, other than with people who are crazy and have low self-esteem. With that in mind, I'm going to stop my assholish ways and just be easy to deal with.
• I resolve not to try and make decisions for other people. I'm going to respect everyone's autonomy. I'm not going to try and make my decisions about things EVERYONE'S decisions, whether they like it or not. If I decide to go on a cleanse, I won't make everyone in my household do it. If I decide to become a vegan, I will do so quietly and privately. I won't involve every other human I know. If I decide to get in shape, I'll do it on my own. I won't insist that my family does it with me. I'm my own person and they are their own people. I get to make decisions for me, not for them.
• I resolve to keep my hands to myself. I won't touch other people unless invited to do so. I certainly won't touch people I don't know or just met. I will respect everyone's right to private personal space. 
• I will resolve not to be negative all the damned time. I won't say things just to bring dark clouds over every situation. I won't point out flaws. I won't bring up politics just to complain about politicians or constantly dwell on social issues. I won't talk about everything wrong with the media. I won't dwell endlessly on everything that is wrong in the world. 
• I resolve to, as much as possible, keep my drama to myself. I won't post about it on Facebook. I won't talk about it, loudly, in restaurants. I ruin hanging out with my friends by endlessly discussing the crap happening in my life. I won't cause scenes in public. I won't turn seemingly innocent conversations into some makeshift therapy session where I whinge about everything wrong in my life. I will realize that sometimes this kind of thing is okay, but not always.
• I resolve not to waste time fixated on hating groups of people. I won't dwell on hating gay people or bigoted straight people or women or men or this race or that religion or this political group. Whenever I start to indulge in this hatred, I will remind myself that life is short and I shouldn't let people I dislike eat away at my time. There are better things to do.
• Finally, I resolve not to constantly assign blame. I will stop blaming others for getting me sick. I will stop blaming the government for all of my problems. I will stop blaming my parents, my spouse, my siblings, my children. I will even stop blaming myself. Assigning blame serves no purpose other than to keep one from resolving whatever ill has made you decide TO assign blame. Let it go. Fix the problem. Move on.

See? Honestly, if we would all do these things, we'd all live a far more peaceful life this year. I am certainly going to try and do this.