The Way I See It

by Dennis J. Lane



No Resolutions Required

"You said you were going to do it."

"I know, but that was a year ago." I couldn't believe he was going to do it again.

"You said you were going to do it."

I had said that. In a moment of weakness.

StillÉ

The thought of jumping into the Chesapeake Bay in January sounds like sheer lunacy. Even to a guy like me. And even if it is for a good cause.

For the seventh year in a row, the Maryland State Police will sponsor the Polar Bear Plunge on January 25th at Sandy Point State Park just outside Annapolis. Last year 1,860 brave (or crazy) souls dashed into the water and raised over $400,000 for the Maryland Special Olympics.

My neighbor, Kirk Christopher, was one of them.

He had enlisted me to be his "second."

This job simply entailed being ready with a warm, dry towel when his frozen body came out of the water.

The only problem was that when he came out of the water, I couldn't find him.

Did I mention that there were 1,860 participants?

When you consider that each participant also brings along at least one other person (hence the term "second"), you end up with a crowd of over 5,000 people. It becomes difficult finding the person you came with. They don't tend to stand around looking for you either.

Kirk didn't. He spent about a nanosecond trying to find me before he headed off to where we had set down his gym bag. He was pretty well bundled up by the time I got to him with the still very dry towel in my hands.

So much for my career as a second.

Which is why I figured he started working on me to join him in the water instead. In my moment of weakness, feeling guilty about missing him coming out of the water, I said I would. Besides, it was a year away. Plenty of time.

This ugly pledge came back to haunt me this past November when I ran into Kirk coming back from the mailbox in bare feet. It was 35 degrees outside.

"It's time to start training."

"Oh god."

It's the same feeling you get when you realize that you are going to break your New Year's resolution.

Why is it that people feel so compelled to beat themselves up by vowing to do something they know they probably won't follow through with? Like jumping into a very cold Chesapeake Bay in January.

We've got it all wrong. This is a bad time of the year to be making rash decisions about our future. We've just come through six weeks of endless decorating, shopping, baking, eating, drinking, wrapping and being generally nice.

It has been estimated that 115 million people will make some sort of a New Year's resolution this year.

According to a poll conducted by USA Today in 2001, about half of those will give up in the first month. By the end of February, 80% of those who made resolutions will have failed.

It's no wonder. We're exhausted. And maybe feeling a little guilty. Kind of like not being there with the towel when our buddy comes out of the 35 degree water. Bad time to think about making amends.

What we really need after an excessive holiday season is rest.

That's right, rest. No heavy lifting, just some serious couch time.

Forget the exercise thing, it's too cold outside. Besides, we could hurt ourselves.

Dieting? We really need to focus on getting our strength back first. We've worked hard. We deserve some quiet time. It's a good time for it, too. We have a whole month of the NFL playoffs and the Super Bowl in front us.

Relax.

Enjoy.

Open a beer.

Dig into a pint of Ben & Jerry's.

Light up that cigar.

We have at least three more months of wearing bulky clothes. Plenty of time to get in shape. Later.

And instead of jumping into icy water ourselves, we can just write a check to the nut neighbor who does.

We might be onto something here. Instead of resolving to do something, we can resolve to do nothing.

And if USA Today ever does a poll on us, I'll bet they find that more than half of us succeed.