I just texted my personal trainer, while confirming our regular Saturday morning appointment for tomorrow, joking that my new year’s resolution is to try and stop yawning during said regular Saturday morning appointment — something she’s always teasing me for doing. (Hey, you try getting up and over to the gym at 10AM on a Saturday after a long week, with no coffee beforehand, and lifting weights for an hour. You’d yawn too.) But in reality, I think my only resolution is to not resolve anything.

Basically, I’ve come to the conclusion that I have mixed luck with achieving my goals. There are things I am good at, and things I am not. I am good at working towards things when other people are involved: I am doing well at going back to school, for example, because there are other people there along for the ride and I get docked points if I slack off, so there is a penalty factor there. (Also it’s really $%^&* expensive and no way am I spending $3500 a quarter to fail classes.) I am good at going to the gym for my regular Saturday morning appointment to get my ass kicked, because I don’t want to bail on Laura and I know she does a better job at making me exercise than I do on my own (the muscle ache for days later proves that). These are not particularly fun things for me, but I still manage to show up because there’s some sort of accountability.

However, when no one is looking, I am crap at things that are not actually fun for me: I like going outside and walking and maybe even running some, but I like to do it on my own terms (i.e., when I feel like it) rather than on a set schedule. If no one is there kicking my ass, let’s be realistic, there are a hundred unread books on my bookshelf and if I stay home and read on Tuesday night, one of my few precious school-free days, my feet won’t hurt all day tomorrow from running on asphalt.

I’ve got some accountability set up for myself on certain things, mostly in the form of 43things. 43things is great because it ties in to my great, eternal love of making lists, but it’s not written on a piece of paper to be lost. Also, I like posting my little entries about how I am ticking things off my list; I won’t lie, it’s a bit self-indulgent, maybe, but it’s also a nice record of progress. (See my 23 (!) entries on my admittedly somewhat-amorphous goal to minimize existing clutter and excess possessions. Nothing beats down a “god, I’m never getting anywhere” funk like looking over a list of, yes, I do believe that is a record of me making actual progress, woo!) Similarly, I have a journal that I started keeping years ago about all my financial stuff; that was practically magical when it came to getting all my shit in order and my credit card debt paid off.

Still, 43things or even my very most entertaining Edward Gorey-themed journal cannot push me out of bed an hour earlier to run 5 miles before work. This simple fact has not stopped me from making resolutions along those sorts of lines in the past. These are things I do not actually want to do, but think I should do, or things I feel obligated to do for reasons not at all to do with my personal commitment to them. Here’s an example: I should probably take a calcium supplement, because I hate milk and won’t drink it, so my bones will probably crumble into dust next Wednesday shortly after lunchtime. Problem is, pills are also gross, I hate them because they dissolve and taste disgusting, and as an added bonus, they are easily forgotten about. So I could make a resolution that this, 2010, this will finally be the year that I am above reproach on the osteoporosis front. But let’s be realistic. Pills are still gross (and yes, I tried Viactiv; those just sat and gathered fake-chocolaty dust), and I’m still going to forget them, and I still won’t drink milk because ew, so resolving to do that is just setting myself up to feel really guilty in about six weeks when the bottle of calcium supplements is still rattling along, totally full minus like 3 pills, camped out next to the coffeemaker where I thought for sure this time, I won’t forget it if I put it here.

Therefore, I am opting out. There’s loads of things I could work on, but in the end, seriously, I’m just not going to drink milk or run before work. I know I should get more calcium. I know it speeds up your metabolism more if you exercise in the morning rather than at night. Not knowing these things is not the problem. The problem is I’m just not going to do them, at all, ever, even a little bit, because I do not want to. So I’m not going to make any well-meaning but misguided resolutions in a vain effort to improve myself in some idealistic fashion, because it’s not going to do anything other than make me cranky and bitter. If I want to run, I’ll go run. If I want to go to school, I’ll go to school. If I want something badly enough, I’ll just do it. But I’m not going to set myself up with reasons to bitch myself out for not being good enough anymore.

So. My New Year’s resolution is to stop resolving to do things I know I’m not going to do. Take that, WASP guilt complex!