A resolution we can all keep

          Well, the holidays are over!  Okay, most of them. We still have Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, Easter and isn’t there some day in February I’m supposed to buy my wife a card?  It’s not President’s Day is it?  Hopefully she’ll leave me some kind of hint.

          In the meantime, I guess it is time to find those long parallel depressions in the ground and climb back into that all-too familiar mundane rut-of-life.  Part of my personal rut that got abandoned during the holidays is going to the gym.  So today, I’m headed down the mountain and into town to renew my membership at the Waynesville Rec Center.  I was getting out of the shower yesterday and realized that the “Spirits of Christmas (just) Past” have taken up residence around my midsection.  Have you ever noticed how similar the words exercise and exorcise are?

          The real reason I’m headed back to the gym (Shh!  Don’t tell Dr. Weaver) is I was making out my schedule for the week and realized I needed some kind of physical activity.  I wouldn’t be surprised if your day-to-day schedule isn't eerily similar to mine:  Get up, drink coffee, take the morning ablutions, eat breakfast, work, stop work, eat dinner, go to bed, repeat.  It’s sad isn’t it?  Yes, there is always Friday night, but how red can you paint a town the size of Waynesville?  Plus, much to my dismay, I have been unable to discover how the Mayans were able to stop the calendar.  It seems that no matter how hard I try to “think myself young,” my body keeps aging and this poor old guy understands that he needs more physical movement than curling a fork from the plate to my face.

          So here is my resolution:  I resolve to… 

Oh, forget that!  Why waste time on promises we’ll never keep?  What are we going to do?  Change the world?  End hunger?  Promote peace?  Save the rainforest?  Get Maury Povich off the air? (And the DNA says…)

          But seriously, how about a resolution we could all stick with? 

I resolve:

to get up each day and face its challenges with reverent prayer and gratitude, for I recognize that each day is a Divine gift;

to understand that I am fallible while working continuously to limit my faults;

to treat others the way I hope they would treat me, foibles and all;

to be the kind of person who I would respect if I met him on the street;

and most of all, when I fail, and I will fail, to get up tomorrow and start over again. 

            I figure if I start with these simple things, changing the world might not be as difficult as it seems on paper (I’m not so sure about Maury).