Happy New Year

Just in case you are living on Neptune or some other heavenly body where solar years have a different duration, we are now in the year 2008. If you are completely unfamiliar with the superstitions and traditions of modern culture (perhaps you are an unfrozen, caveman lawyer), you were supposed to do several things on the 1st of January, such as make resolutions you really don't intend to keep and eat black eyed peas.

Personally, I've never been a huge fan of New Year's resolutions. How many people actually keep their resolutions, or make meaningful ones? If you don't have a better reason to change than the fact that it is now time to put the wrong date on all your checks, you are very unlikely to succeed in those changes. And if you do have a better reason, why are you waiting until the first of January to start, you lazy schmuck?

Don't get me wrong, I am an avid fan of personal improvement, especially if it doesn't involve reading a book. Over the past several years, I have spent a good deal of time on introspection and self assessment; I have tried to identify my personal problems and work to correct them. This process I jokingly model in my Britt versioning system. (I am a geek. If you are reading this, that shouldn't surprise you.) Britt 1.0 was way back in the days of yore, the early 90s, when the Wii would have been on Star Trek: the Next Generation, and Rock Band meant Guns N' Roses. Britt 2.0 occupied the latter half of the 1990s and is affectionately referred to as 'Dark Britt' by those in the know. Britt 3.0 and 4.0 only lasted a few years each, from about 2000 to 2003 and 2004 to 2007, respectively. As the 21st and 7/100ths century dawns, it is time to unveil Britt 5.0.

So, given my disdain for New Year's resolutions, how do I justify attempts to change myself at this time? For me, it just so happens that the time to change happens to coincide with the new year. I didn't plan to make changes on the first, nor is it really a sudden change. We are all changing all the time, or should be, and I have been working on some drastic changes consistently over the past five months. I just got back from Hong Kong and have been thinking about some important life choices and one of the final changes will be worked on over the next few months.

I don't really like talking about myself that much, and I adore being vague and mysterious, so I am not going into what changes I have made or intend to make. Suffice to say, I don't know how well this will work, as it involves acting, which has never been my forte. As my friend Jessica A. pointed out, likely correctly, I am scared of it; but, as Mary Schimch suggested, I should do one thing every day that scares me. I don't know exactly why I am scared of acting; I don't know if it is a fear of success, failure, loss of options, or being the cause of an eventual downfall of mankind and rise of a flying monkey empire, but I do recognize that I am scared of action, irrationally, and that I should do something about that.

So, now that I have ridiculed anyone that might possibly answer this question, did any of you make New Year's resolutions? Or do you have any thoughts about what I said above or New Year's resolutions in general?