The Fall Reset

I have New Year’s resolutions four times a year. Spring. Summer. Winter. And Fall.

It makes more sense to me to do it this way. After all, building up a small mountain of things you want to change (usually smoking less, eating less, sitting on the couch less), clutching them tightly until New Year’s Eve, and then flinging them into the great unknown, hoping they won’t hit you on they way down . . . well. It never really works, does it?

I deal much better with small bites of resolution. I quarter my goals up like an apple, slather them in peanut butter, and munch on them throughout the year. They taste better that way. I can eat them at my leisure, rather than trying to gobble them all down on January 1. And when life throws you a curve ball, as it always does, you can easily decide you’re full, and maybe you don’t need that last piece after all.

Plus it’s easier to make life changes when the seasons change. I don’t know about you, but the holidays exhaust me. I usually don’t have the energy to trek over to Target to return the ugly snowman sweater I got at the office holiday party, much less revolutionize my career, shed 15 pounds of Christmas cookie weight, and sign up for the Peace Corps. Come January 1, all I want to do is sleep.

But when the seasons change, like they’re about to right now, it makes sense. The air is changing—it becomes more vibrant (or sometimes more quiet). The light changes—it grows or it ebbs. Things smell differently. New fruits and vegetables are in season. What we taste, what we breathe in—it all is familiar and new at the same time. Which makes it the perfect time to think about what you are going to do next. 

What will you do differently this fall?

Comments

[Olivia V. Ambrogio]

It's true--this time of year, when transition and change are made beautiful and vibrant by all the trees setting themselves aflame as they turn towards winter, is a great time in which to be galvanized to change things. (I used to think that was why the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah, was in fall, and then I remembered that the religion started in the desert, where the seasons are different. Whoops.)
Maybe I'll try to work more steadily on my creative writing, like my two-thirds-done novel, instead of writing in little fits and starts and then whining about how I don't finish it. (I bet that would make *other* people around me happier, too.)

[Noel]

Olivia, are we the same person? Fits and starts are the bane of my existence! What is your novel about?

[Kate]

Thanks for sharing this! And I love the four times a year idea...Hooray for apples and peanut butter and self-reflection!