OK, so my new year’s resolutions for 2025 are a bit late.
But the way I see things (rose-coloured glasses, always!), it’s not about when you make your resolutions for any given year, it’s about how you keep them for the rest of that year.
Or if you do.
Because saying is one thing, doing is another.
Anyone can say they’re going to get in better physical shape this year, eat healthier, try new activities, social and otherwise, spend more time with those who deserve your company, less with those who don’t, those sorts of things.
The trick is to actually accomplish your new year’s resolutions.
Now, to be fair, if you make resolutions you have no chance of keeping then you’re wasting everyone’s time.
If, for example, one of my 2025 resolutions is to start playing pickleball regularly, that just wouldn’t get done.
I’m a tennis guy, and while I see the attraction of pickleball (I have tried it), it’s just not for me.
Or if I decided to get in better shape by running longer distances every other day, say five kilometres instead of 2.5 kilometres, on Allandale’s narrow streets and crooked sidewalks.
All this would do is lead to sore knees, tighter calves and nearly sprained ankles (see crooked sidewalks). I’d miss more time running than I would gain in terms of being in shape. So that’s another resolution not to make.
Or if another 2025 goal was to finally get with it, after all these years, and listen to modern music. The stuff that’s played on the radio, that’s streamed, downloaded. Even on coloured vinyl.
Not just new musicians making that jangly folk-rock from the 1960s, which always creeps into my listening habits, but actual new music about modern themes and modern people and, well, just not old.
Not going to happen.
I will still reach for Bob Dylan and The Band, The 1974 Live Recordings, 27 CDs of timeless music, when I want to listen to music that sounds how I want it to sound.
So no music resolutions — until modern music gets better and older music becomes extinct.
I could and should eat better, but I eat pretty well now. There could be a bit better variety in the fruits and vegetables I consume, I could be a little pickier about the meat I eat, eat more fish, that sort of thing. Not snack in the evenings.
But all of these "betterments" would probably mean I’d have to spend more than 20 minutes a week (my normal grocery shopping time) in the food store.
I don’t really like shopping for anything, let alone groceries, so this resolution wouldn’t get done and shouldn’t be made.
Maybe make better use of those 20 grocery shopping minutes every week. Or then again…
Spending more time with those who deserve your company is a noble goal, a noble resolution, but a tricky one, too.
What, for example, if they aren’t keen about spending more time with you? They want to spend some time with you, but not that much more.
Better to keep that one off the resolution list, at least for now. See how the summer looks.
The resolution that causes the most angst is, of course, what to do about Toronto’s Maple Leafs. Is it really worth cheering for a team which has found approximately 101 ways to lose since it last won the Stanley Cup in 1967? A team which looks like world-beaters one night, basement dwellers the next?
The resolution would be not to get too high when the Leafs win, not to get too upset when they inevitably lose.
But it’s nearly impossible to keep this resolution because it’s the Leafs, it’s hockey, it's Canada, etc., etc.
So let’s tally up those 2025 resolutions, shall we.
Not playing pickleball, not running longer, not eating much better, not listening to new music, still a Leafs fan and just enjoying the company I keep.
What’s that? Zero for six?
Another great set of new year’s resolutions.
Bob Bruton covers city hall for BarrieToday. He admits he’s not much good at finding new year’s resolutions, let alone keeping them.
