New Year's Resolutions....

Well, here we are. It’s time for the last scheduled post of 2005. A year in which I posted five days a week every week except one (the one where I landed in New Orleans and spent the night living out scenes from my own novel). All in all, I have to say that I am very, very happy to see this year go by. I went through a lot of rough patches this year and if you’ve been reading this for the entire year you’ll know just when those patches were. That’s when the postings became cynical, even from my perspective. So, since I really do not want to spend any more time dwelling on the negative I’m going to discuss my two New Year’s Resolutions. Two items that I think really define my view of the world right now.

Here’s the first one. At this time of year everyone starts talking about learning something in the next year and it’s always something like “I’m going to teach myself Spanish” or “I’m going to learn how to program in C++” or “I’m going to learn how to play the guitar.” All of these are really useful skills that will come in handy at some point in your life. But here is my view on things. I’m 32. When Mozart was my age he’d been dead for seven years. I’ve begun to realize that “useful skills” never really become useful in life.

So instead I have decided that for every year for the rest of my life I am going to teach myself one completely meaningless and unnecessary skill. Something that will have absolutely no impact on my job performance or in my social life. Which for 2006 will be teaching myself how to juggle. Outside of impressing my nieces and nephews, I can think of no way in which that will be a useful skill, which is exactly why I want to do it. Instead of focusing on something serious I want to make myself do something completely silly. That should help me keep a light hearted focus on things and not let myself get into those dark spaces I’ve been before.

Doing something silly really fits into my next resolution, since the rule is from here on out I will do one really silly thing a year. And I don’t mean silly as in skydive or bungee jump. Those things are a) cliché and b) stupid. All you’re doing is risking your health for a momentary adrenalin rush. No, instead I want to do something that is a) fun, b) harms no one and most likely makes people laugh and c) causes everyone I explain it to to go “Are you serious? Don’t you have a job?” Because the last thing I want to be from here on out is a person who is seriously into his job.

That’s why I am going to take time off in 2006 to tour with a band. Not as part of the road crew or anything, I’m just going to travel the country seeing the same band in different venues. And we’re not talking about my following Dave Matthews here. I’m thinking of The Frames, a band that will play to at most 1,000 people. I just think that this would be so cool. By the second or third night the band is going to be wondering “Just what the hell is this guy doing?” and by the end of my part of the tour I’ll probably end up backstage with the band. From my perspective, this is a great way to see the country, listen to great music, and get one hell of a story out of the mix.

There’s another reason why I want to start doing something silly and it is really the driver behind all of this. Because at some point I want to do something that is silly but meaningful, like This Old Cub. Some of you may have heard of this story, some of you may not have but once I heard it I knew that somehow, someday I was going to have to try to match it. The story is this. Recently they released a documentary on Ron Santo, the former Cub great and current Cub announcer who has suffered from diabetes his entire life. Now Santo never let on that he had diabetes while he played, which is incredible given the time and the nature of the disease plus his ability to be an all-star with the condition. As the years have gone by his situation has worsened and has resulted in the amputation of his lower legs. The documentary covered this part of the story.

Well, this guy in Arizona (who was in his late 50’s I think) watched it and came up with an idea. He would walk from Arizona to Wrigley Field, raising money for diabetes research along the way. That was it, he would take months out of his life to walk that distance with two bad knees and all. And he did it and even though I am a Sox fan watching him walk onto Wrigley Field and shake hands with Ron Santo was one of the highlights of my year.

And all I could think of when I saw that was “I should do something like that.” I don’t know when or where (I think I know for what) but one day I want to set out on an adventure like that one. I bet every person told him that it was silly and questioned him. But he did it and there is no doubt in my mind that the world is a better place because of it. So, I’m going to start by doing something silly and one day, hopefully what is silly will turn into something meaningful.

Hope that everyone has a great New Year. Let’s have 2006 be a better year than 2005.