Squawk Radio
Monday, December 26, 2005
Connie is hereby resolved...
not to be resolved.
Christmas has barely passed into, well, the past, and I am already making my annual segue into remorse. I ate too much. I spent too much. I exercised too little. I didn’t spend enough time with family and friends and I did spend too much time in front of the computer—not working, of course, but playing computer games.
Now all this is simply the pre-lim rounds leading up to Connie Brockway's Annual Oath-Taking, wherein I swear I shall stick to a> some ridiculously exhaustive fitness regime b> some ridiculously exhaustive work schedule c>some ridiculously exhaustive household budget d> some ridiculously exhaustive social schedule e> all of the above.
Which would be all well and good except The Annual Oath-Taking is always followed within a week by The Annual Oath-Breaking.
I know this because I’ve been doing it for years and you know what? All those broken promises to myself are beginning to make me feel bad about, well, me. It's enough to make a woman suspect that maybe, just maybe, she lacks Self-Control. She may even be Self-Indulgent and lack Willpower. In fact, she pretty much sucks.
Huh.
I don’t like that idea. I don’t want to be an Oath-Breaker. I don't want to be the weak-sister. I don't want to watch my friends shrink to svelte nothings (hear that Squawkers!?) as they stick to the plan while I not only don't stick to the plan, but jettison the plan right out the cargo bay. On the other hand, I do like the idea of Building a Better Connie.
But how to go about this?
I’ve hit upon a scheme; I'm going to forego the Oath-Taking altogether.
That's right, this year I am going to leap-frog right over long-term commitments centered on self-denial and strict regimens and instead promise myself a series of singular experiences that will either challenge or enrich me. Or kill me.
For instance: Rather than promise to slog along on the treadmill for an hour a day 5 times a week, I have decided to go rock-climbing at the Vertical Endeavors indoor facility. Now, I don’t know if I’ll like it. I don't know if I have any talent for it. How would I? I'm afraid of heights. For all I know I’ll fall off and be stranded, suspended like some hideous Shelob thing with a Connie face, dangling in my harness twenty feet above the screaming kiddies scrambling for cover below. So what?
It’s something I’ve been curious about and if I like it enough, maybe I’ll go back, maybe I’ll take a class, maybe I’ll get good at it and maybe it will become exericise (witness the insidious workings of my mind; I will TRICK myself into weight loss!)
So how’s it going to be with you, my little chicks? Now that the fresh New Year is standing before us, taunting us with potential and promise, how will you respond?
Connie Brockway, 6:15 PM
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