Resolatin' The New Year

by Langston Kerr

Well, we got us a new year a lookin' us in the face! It's one of them times, if you're like most people, that takes a look back'ards to see what '96 was like and you wonder what '97 is gonna be like. Hope it's a good'un.

Have you made you any new year's resolations? If you're like the most of us, you've got a whole big bunch of 'em made and about half of 'em busted by now! They's this ole sayin' about new year's resolations bein' meant to be broke and I'm a thinkin' that most people that make'em really don't have no more idea of keepin' 'em than a duck does. That bein' the case, they ain't no use in piddlin' with 'em in the first place. That's the way I look at it.

Them new year's resolations is important. You ort not have get uh idea in your head that it's jist somethin' you do one time a year and then you stick your list up somewheres and ferget all about it. Jist makin' up resolations can tell you all kinds of things you ort to know about yourself. But if you turn right around and ferget'em after you get through makin'em, that tells you a whole lot more.

I like new year's resolations, myself. It's kinda like when you get to the end of the old year, you look back on it and see what you done right and what you done wrong. Then you make up your mind that in the year to come, in 1997, you're gonna do better than what you done in '96. It's like you take stock of where you've been and you try and figger out where you're goin' next year. The trouble is, most of my lookin' back is seein' what at I done that I don't want to do no more. I see things I've done back there that I don't partic'lar like and I make me a resolation not to do 'em in the comin' year.

Marie ain't like that, though. She don't look at things like I do. She'll take and go back over the old year and try and figger out what it was that she done right. Then she'll center up on that. She says the way she looks at it, they's plenty of folks around to tell you where you've gone wrong and messed up. So she don't have to fool with that. That's took care of. She says the onliest thing left is fer her to look at is the things she's done right.

Marie says she's one of them that would a whole lot druther 'start' doin' somethin' than to quit doin' somethin'. She says the way she looks at it, you can quit this and quit that and quit somethin' else and, next thing you know, you ain't doin' nothin' atall. Not doin' nothin', the way she looks at it, is worser than doin' somethin', even if that somethin' happens to be the wrong thing to do. Besides, she says that not doin' nothin' is the lazy way out. Ain't nothin' wrong with bein' lazy sometimes, but you ort not to make a whole life out of it. They's a lot more to life than jist settin' around thinkin' about quittin' somethin' all the time.

That makes sense, I reckon. In a way it does. I ain't never looked at it like that before. One thing about it, if it was me, lookin' at the list of right things I done would prob'ly shorten the list of stuff I had to look at a right good bit.

Me and her talked about that some here the other day and Marie says you can tell what kind of a person somebody is by how they look at things like that. She says that if you come up on somebody that decides they're gonna quit doin' somethin', that tells you one thing about'em and if they come up with somethin' they're gonna start doin', it tells you somethin' else about'em.

I don't know which one is worse. Is it worser when you're doin' somethin' you ort to quit doin' or is it worser when you ain't doin' somethin' that you ort to be doin'? Or it might be the same thing.

Take the case of somebody that's too fat. That's one I can relate to real easy. Maybe I decide I'm gonna quit eatin' so much so I can lose some weight. Well, they ain't nothin' the matter with that. Lord knows I could stand to shed a few pounds. But, then, you got Marie standin' over there and she says she's gonna start eatin' right so's she won't be fat no more. See what I mean? Both of us said about the same thing, but we're lookin' at it from two whole different angles. I'm sayin' I'm gonna quit somethin' and she says he's gonna start somethin'.

I don't know which way is the best. I look at things from the quittin' end of the pipe and Marie looks at it from the startin' end. She puts up a purty good argument fer startin',but the way I look at it, they's more to it than that. Life ain't all black and white like that. I'm all fer doin' somethin' that's good and right, but, on the other hand, if I'm doin' somethin' that ain't right, the thing fer me to do is quit. All the do-goodin' in the world ain't gonna make up fer it if I'm doin' mean things. I got to stop doin' the mean things I might be doin' before my do-goodin' is gonna do any good. See what I mean?

I guess in the end it don't matter much matter which way you look at it. The important thing is doin' somethin' about it after you get through talkin' about it.

I ain't made but one resolation, but I'm stickin' to mine. It might not change my life, but even if I make this one little bitty change, it'll be fer the better. I'll be that much better off this time next year than I am right now.

Who knows? By the time I'm 500 years old, maybe I'll be a purty good ol' boy!

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