Resolve Face

Hello dear readers, and a very happy new year!

Yes, it's that time again. A time of renewal. A time to reflect on the year just gone, focus on the one to come and make some real, meaningful, changes to one’s life that will ensure future health, wealth, and happiness.

Or alternatively...

It's that time of year where I (and I suspect I may not be entirely alone here) make myself grand, well-meaning promises to do the above and then spectacularly fail to actually take any kind of action in order to actually honour said resolutions.

Take for instance last year. Alright it wasn't the perfect start to a year (see the post entitled 'Last Christmas’ for the reason why), I had every intention of making the year a good one though. This was the year that I was going to try my hand at writing a book. This was the year that I was going to build on the previous year's aborted efforts to get fit through six mile 'trundles'. This was going to be my year!

There were other high and mighty resolutions of course, as always; including a pledge that, after the physiotherapy that followed the above mentioned less than perfect year start, I would start trying to use my crutches more. All were made with sincerity and not a small amount of resolve and, as Jools Holland was helping us to count in the New Year, not one of them had even been started. I could blame the injury, the stay in hospital and the weeks of physio for setting me back. I could point to the fact I was made redundant and had to find a new job. I could make these and a thousand other excuses but deep down I know that there was just one thing holding me back... Me.

At the risk of seeming conceited I'd like to think I'm capable of being honest with myself when it comes to my failings (I know, it's surprising, but I do have one or two) and one that I think is a particular Achilles heel is a profound lack of anything resembling follow through.

Yes, I am indeed one of those annoying people who starts things but doesn't finish them, one of those people who can always find something else to do other than that one thing I need to do right now and although I am painfully, agonisingly, aware of it, I have always thought it would be something that would be a part of me. That was until quite recently.

You may have noticed that this very blog, in its early days, suffered from this tendency of mine. You may have also noticed that this is no longer the case. There are no longer any large gaps between posts, no longer any random posts popping up at odd intervals. Instead there has been, as promised, a regular, weekly post every Sunday since abnormal service resumed. So it would seem that I may (with the help of this blog) be on my way to, if not conquering, then at least minimising this annoying trait.

All of which, dear readers, is my possibly slightly too long way of setting up this year's one and only resolution. You see, along with the above mentioned character flaw I have one other that particularly haunts me. It is a facet of my mental makeup that I think may, in part, be attributable to my disability, and it is the tendency to be far too independent.

Something, deep inside me, abhors asking for help you see. Call it pride, call it wilfulness, call it what you will, but as far as I can remember it's always been there. I've never liked being told I can't do something, never liked being unable to do things for myself and I think It's at least in part because I've always known that I have limitations others don't. A psychiatrist would probably give this a fancy name (and charge a small fortune a session to treat it too) but I think bullheadedness pretty much covers it.

So there you have it, this year's half assed resolution. To be that bit more accepting of help, that little less independent and perhaps that little more ready to admit my limits.

Well that's the plan anyway.

Until next time...