Sometimes it's a lot like frozen peanut butter. It's thick and hard to do anything with. Other times it's like thin jelly, spreading hither and yon until stopped by a boundary of some sort.
Yesterday and Thursday were peanut butter days. It was hard figuring out what I wanted to say. First I had one thought, then another, then a third. None were pleasing. None were satisfying. I started a rant because of passwords, which we probably share as a pet peeve, and decided it was too ranty to start off a new year, so I stopped. I went in another direction.
I started in on New Year's resolutions, beginning a post explaining that I used to make New Year's resolutions but never kept them. Explaining my experience is that Resolutions are an exercise in self-directed failure.
When I used to make them, I did the normal things a lot of people do: "I resolve to..." followed by a promise to Self. It doesn't matter if it's eat less, exercise more, lose weight, stop smoking, stop drinking or something else entirely. People make these promises to themselves, perhaps in public or to a close friend or relative, and start off with good intentions.
For myself, the first few days were pretty easy. I would be "good". I would keep to my guidelines but, sooner or later, I would slip. My foot would inadvertently tip off the edge of the curb. I'd scramble to find my balance, but the spell was broken. Within a day or two or three I would slip again, only this slip was more planned. It wasn't a matter of error or chance. It was usually more of, "Oh, just once. Then I'll be good again."
By February 1st all of the resolutions I had made were lost far behind in the cloud of dust filling my rear view. By then guilt had also passed and I was resigned to having failed again. As a result, I stopped making resolutions. It's easier that way. I have no guilt, no shame, no sense of failure.
With all of that said, I noticed while re-reading Friday's post that I do use some words a lot. I use them a whole lot. A whole lot more than I should. I throw them in like salt, or like confetti spewed into the air by a machine at New Year's or at the end of a football (American football) championship game. Like this:
My confetti words are 'hope', 'so', and 'now' and I hereby mostly swear them off.
I'm not going to resolve not to use them. It's a habit and I probably will use them from time to time, but I'm going to try not to. If I do (when I do, more like) I am not going to feel guilty. I am not going to give into the urge to go back into a posted post and fix it. That's a resolution, too, and one that might be harder to keep.
That's the reference I alluded to at the end of this morning's post.
Yesterday, as part of my peanut-butter-brain-day, I started writing a post about resolutions, drifted over to the words I use too often, and my determination not to use them. Then, without posting that post, I started a different post which I put up this morning, In that, at its end, it refers to something unreleased - resolutions.
There's that jelly-brain at work. The one that spreads and doesn't stop until it finds a boundary.
So now I hope that's clear (winking at you because I did that with deliberation!).
Wishing you a lovely day - resolved or not!
Best~
Philippa
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