Expect the unexpected
Since it’s resolution time, how about this: Making 2018 the year of living dangerously.
Happy New Year everyone. I hope 2018 brings you nothing but good news, including (and especially) the removal from office of the current President of the United States. However, here’s one last – small, I promise – piece of bad news to round off 2017.
You know those resolutions you’ve carefully planned out in your Bullet Journal (it’s the new global craze, Google it!). They are probably not going to stick. You may as well save your breath and everyone else’s sanity at tonight’s new year bash, and keep your self-promises to yourself.
‘New year, new you’ hardly ever works. One oft-quoted statistic has fewer than 10 per cent of us carrying through with resolutions, with most giving up after about a week. Resolutions are so final – there’s no wiggle room, and that’s part of the problem. Life requires wiggles. We have to have permission to fail a little bit and then reset, or make small, incremental changes as we go.
I have a few changes I’d like to make, but they’re not resolutions. They will not make me fitter, slimmer or more attractive, nor even healthier necessarily. But they’re the little things I’d like to do a bit more of in 2018. There, is that wishy washy enough? Number one, I’d like to be better at remembering names. This has been an agonising failing for most of my adult life. Remembering names is often perceived as a sign of intelligence and mastery – think how impressive Jacinda Ardern was at her very first press conference as Labour leader, calling on each journalist by name.
I’ve tried the repetition thing (as each new person you meet tells you their name, repeat it immediately – nice to meet you, Mary – and then use it as many times as you can during the conversation). This works, but is ultimately of no use because all the repetition makes you sound like the worst kind of doorto-door salesperson - they’re never likely to want to talk to you again.
I could try the name association trick: I imagine Mary with a lamb tucked under her arm, or Mike busting out some karaoke. The drawback here, is that this diverts your attention while you conjure up the appropriate association, leaving you unable to respond to the post-introduction pleasantries. You’ve drawn that tick on Mark’s forehead with your imaginary Sharpie, but by then Mark is looking for someone less stupid to talk to.
It’s a work in progress, as is number two: remembering to take reusable bags to the supermarket, every time. Countdown (owned by Progressive Enterprises) and New World (by Foodstuffs) will make this much, much easier for me, by scrapping free plastic bags from the end of 2018. These announcements were one of the truly good things that happened this year. Plans for the ban to extend to their other chains, however (Pak ‘n Save and Four Square for Foodstuffs, and SuperValue and FreshChoice for Progressive), are less firm.
Pak ‘n Save will still offer bags for 10 cents, and some of the smaller stores were ‘‘looking at’’ phasing them out. When I forget to take the reusables I end up with an average of about 5 bags per shopping trip, which are then redeployed as bin liners and school lunch carriers. This appeases my conscience a bit, but I’m already looking down the track at composting and biodegradable bin liners as the end of the shopping bag era approaches.
While we’re on the subject of waste, I’d also like to give up buying takeaway coffee. This is never going to happen. Pointless to imagine it will. I have only one a day, but it has assumed a large presence in my life. I am distracted and incomplete until I get it. What I will try, is to give up buying it in takeaway cups. There are billions used every year and even the ones marked ‘recyclable’ mostly go to landfill.
I’ve also read we have more than a kilogram of undigested plastic in our systems from taking food through things like takeaway coffee cup lids. Apparently when the hot coffee passes through the plastic lid, the BPA is drawn from the plastic into your body. Can’t be good. I have a keep cup and I plan to use it.
Finally, I’d like to do the unexpected a bit more. This year I met a guy, let’s call him Dan, whose daughter was about to arrive back in the country to get married. Dan decided he’d do something special for the reception; something a bit outside his comfort zone. So he hired a dance teacher, and learned a hip hop/funk routine to a mix of Jump On It by the Sugar Hill Gang, and MC Hammer’s immortal You Can’t Touch This.
Dan was not what you’d call a ‘‘natural’’ but he was determined to step up (and out, two, three, four) and give his darling girl a father-of-the-bride twirl on the dancefloor no-one would ever forget.
The week before the wedding Dan woke up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night and realised he was going to make a massive idiot of himself. I can’t do it, he told his daughter the next day, it’s a silly idea. No Dad, said his girl, you can, and I want you to.
Dan nailed it on the night, to the delight of everyone at the party, including the sceptical youngsters.
In 2018, I want to be more like that guy.
I'd also like to give up buying takeaway coffee. This is never going to happen.