Lies I Tell Myself: New Year’s Eve Edition

Can resolutions have an effect on the next year? Surely so…but perhaps not as long lasting an effect as one might hope. It's pretty well known that gym memberships see their greatest increase at the first of the year as weight loss is a pretty common resolution. We have the mindset that joining a gym is an excellent way to solidify our commitment and, incidentally, add a monetary cost as incentive.

What is less commonly known is the date on which gym memberships are most commonly cancelled, or on which people quit making their exercise appointments despite continuing to pay their membership fees. That date falls generally right after Valentine's day. I guess we figure that for better or worse that's our day of reckoning and after that the year is all downhill.

With that in mind, here are a few of my personal resolutions for the upcoming year:

1. I work in a technology field and one of the requirements for keeping up is to learn new things and stay current with the changing equipment and software. To that end I'm afraid it's time to bid a fond farewell to my beloved Final Cut Pro editing software and make the leap to using Adobe Premiere. This is difficult for me because I've used FCP for so long that I know most of the shortcuts and I'm pretty quick with the interface. However, after the newest version of the software was a bit of a letdown I've been clinging to a previous version which has prevented me from updating my operating system and has gradually fallen behind the technical needs of my job. So this is the year that I let it go and force myself to make the big switch.

   I've got a close friend in the video field who encountered a similar dilemma years ago and is, consequently, still stuck there. Frozen in time like a bug caught in amber. He is my personal ghost of Jacob Marley and I am not going to be stuck carrying these chains forever.

2. Along the same lines…over the course of this next year I want to shoot more. I've always been an editor at heart and I usually shoot only when necessary. However, I find myself enjoying the process more and more and I want to start making a habit of carrying my camera with me and shooting more non-work related stuff.
3. I'm not going to belabor this too much, but over the past year and a half I've gone through a huge change physically. I managed to get rid of around a hundred and fifty pounds that I've been carrying since Junior High School. Physically, this is the best shape I've been in…which is a weird thing to realize in your forties. To me, this is a chance to get out and do the things I've never been able to do before. This might be stuff that the average person takes for granted, but simple things like hiking, biking….just getting out in the outdoors more. That's what I want to do.

   Please come and visit me in the hospital when I inevitably injure myself…

So I'll leave it there with the three big ones. That's probably enough to get started with in this new year.

You might notice a conspicuous absence of things like "be nicer to other people" and such. Frankly, I feel like I should stick to things that I'm going to be able to do realistically and, to that end, I should probably keep the focus inward. All you other people are on your own.

To wrap up: Good luck with the gym membership! Also I hear Uber is great and would recommend utilizing it if you plan to go out for New Year's Eve.

…and I'll leave you with a portentous transcript of a text conversation I had with Matt on January 1st of this last year:

Jaska: "I'm full of ham and I'm smoking a cigar in my pajamas. None of those is a euphemism."

Silva: "You know they say what you do on new years day is what you do the rest of the year."

Jaska: "From your lips to God's ear…."

Happy New Year!

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