My New Year’s Resolution
It’s January again; the time of year when everybody ‘resolves’ to do something life-changing.
Normally, this is because a few days of summarising our annual news for friends and family forces us to acknowledge our own inactivity and apathy, which immediately disgusts us and makes us want to change…
…until everything returns to normal a few days later and the tedious regularity of everyday life smothers our fervour, so we can invent excuses to justify doing nothing at all. Then we can safely slip back into the coma of normality and convince ourselves that, actually, we couldn’t possibly do all those things we resolved to do after a few drinks. Thus the futile life-cycle of the new year’s resolution runs its course.
The other day, I read an interesting new-year-themed blog post about 14 things the writer wasn’t going to do in 2014. Getting up early, quitting coffee, planning for the future, being on time, forcing smiles, growing up and falling in love all made it onto the list.
As whiny as it seemed at the time, it was an interesting idea: a new year’s resolution to stop making pointless new year’s resolutions. That is something I can definitely get behind. In fact, I have decided it will form the backbone of my own new year’s resolution: to make more resolutions!
This year, I shall make every significant decision as a resolution. I am going to actually do what I say I am going to do, including the things I have always said I am going to do, but have thus far never done.
I’ve always wanted to see the Northern Lights, for example, so next week I’m going to Iceland with Vikki. Although there is no guarantee that we will see the Northern Lights, it takes about 18 mintues to go online and book a flight, a hotel and a rental car – so why the hell wouldn’t we go?!
It is baffling, therefore, when you compare the number of people in the average room who would love to see the Northern Lights (everybody) to the number of people who have gone hunting them (almost nobody). It is the epitome of the pseudo-resolutions people make all the time: “One day I will…” or “I’d love to do…”
This year, I will stamp out that pitiful type of statement from my life – hopefully forever. The way I see it, there couldn’t be a better or more appropriate way of starting 2014!
[divider] [space height=”20″]For reference, my New Year’s Resolution last year was to have an entire year of adventures. So I booked a one way flight to the farthest possible point in the world, where I took part in Adventurethon, explored the Daintree rainforest and went wandering through the mountains of New Zealand. I jumped out of a plane, forged a knife and leaped off the third highest bungee jump in the world.
During the Spring and Summer, I had my first cage fight, challenged a body builder to a gym session and ran Tough Guy Nettle Warrior. In the end of Summer and Autumn, I played my first music festival, opened the Mighty Boosh backstage photography exhibit and did my first two days on set as a stunt man. These may not count as adventures, but they were still a lot of fun.
Then it was back to the adventuring, this time in Asia where I visited the incredible Angkor Wat, saw the Killing Fields of Cambodia, tripped balls in Laos and generally romped around with the uniquely wonderful person who is now my girlfriend.
If I remember rightly, my New Year’s Resolution in 2012 was to learn to fight. So I learned to fight. For the rest of the year, I tried to do one awesome thing for every month. I think I did a decent job:
- Completed Winter Tough Guy Winter
- Won on the EWA British Title
- Bought a motorbike
- Climbed the Three Peaks
- Ran in the Olympic Stadium
- Quit my job
- Raised £3000 for Action for Children
- Saw some amazing live music, including Andrew WK, Volbeat, Metallica, Tenacious D and Black Sabbath
- Swam in Loch Ness
- Completed two Spartan Races
- Squatted over twice my body weight (160kg) and deadlifted nearly three times my body weight (220kg)
- Took up climbing
Hopefully I should manage to stick to my 2014 resolution. I hope you do too!