A Letter to My Younger Self of a Few Weeks Ago About Our New Year’s Resolutions

Dear Younger Self of a Few Week Ago,

I’d like to say I’m proud of you and that, like bourbon, you’ve been through an aging process and your refinement has made me mature and earthy, with peaty undertones. Instead, I need to say that being drunk on leftover Christmas bourbon eggnog is no excuse for signing me up to be a better you.

When we went through the same charade last year, we agreed that in the future, the only New Year’s resolution would be to make no resolutions. Yet you, once again, got caught up in the contagion of the season. Like last year, we’re mere moments into the new year and our resolutions are more like irresolutions.

Most of your aspirations are admirable, although you think more highly of your future self than you ought. I’m physically broken after attempting “300 burpees each week— it does not count if knees touch the ground.” At 10 am on 1 January, I was still snug in bed. By then, I’d already failed “A daily 5 am 10-mile run — rain, hail, or shine, or hurricane, or tsunami, or earthquake, or fire, or landslide, or famine, or angry mob, or nuclear war — nothing will stop me.”

I applaud your plan to “Eat healthier – no more triple bacon burgers with loaded fries and extra thick thickshakes at 2 am.” But it’s not my fault you packaged and labeled all the Christmas leftovers for each day until February. I’ve been eating the ham like you were drinking the eggnog: without reading the use-by date, late at night on the kitchen floor, alone, and belting out Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now.”

You know my bathing routine is much like that of a hedonistic tourist visiting Icelandic hot springs. “Be like Wim Hof and only have ice baths” was never going to happen.

If you had wanted me to “Save money – remember that buying things on sale is not actually saving,” then you wouldn’t have purchased the top-of-the-line standing desk with buy-now-pay-later. I haven’t used the standing functionality, and I now slump at my desk an extra hour each night to pay it off.

I’d been doing well at “Be a better son – stop telling Dad he was never around.” Until I lied to him, saying I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions and that New Year’s Day is an arbitrary construct created by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 when he needed a reason to tell his family that he really was going to try to be a more present Pope.

If you were serious about “Become at peace with myself and my hairline,” you shouldn’t have forced me into these resolutions. I’ve been frazzled enough that I’m like a sheep right after a shear — skittish, hairless, and unable to do anything but bleat frightened sounds.

Please tell me it was a joke when you resolved to “Become an astronaut – shoot for the moon, even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” Nothing has changed in the last few weeks. I still don’t like flying. I don’t like being away from home. I’m claustrophobic. I’m awkward with small groups of people. Don’t you remember the nightmare? We were abducted by aliens who put us in an ill-fitting David Bowie mask and made us sing “Space Oddity” on repeat for three years. We woke up screaming “Here am I floating ‘round my tin can.”

You became irrational with “Become the first person to climb Mount Everest naked.” As mentioned, you’re not the fittest person. Also, it was a trade-off between a nude climb of the world’s highest peak and “Improve my love life.” I’ve opted for the resolution that involves fewer frostbite amputations of my nether regions.

As I look back over the last few weeks, my most important advice is this: Stop saying “New year, new me,” because although it’s a new year, I’m the same old you.

Sincerely,

A Few Weeks Older You