Resolutions

Today’s Resolution: Give into a Guilty Pleasure

If you died tomorrow, would you be upset that you stuffed your face with a jelly doughnut today? I think not. We all have guilty pleasures, whether it’s watching reality tv shows, taking naps, eating chocolate ice cream, playing bad video games, or drawing moustaches on pretty women in magazines.

Today don’t worry about calories, whether or not TV fries your brain, or what anyone thinks. Do what makes you happy. And if it’s healthy, then keep it up.

Today’s Resolution: Go for Broke

Money doesn’t grow on trees, you know!

Today your goal is to keep your money in your bank account. Don’t blow $2-4 on a single coffee. No $12 salad for lunch. Today you’ll be brown-bagging it like the third grade. At the end of the day, take note of how much money you saved. And if you read this resolution too late to plan ahead, try it tomorrow.

Today’s Resolution: Do That Thing You’ve Been Meaning To Do

Yesterday’s resolution was to take a brain dump. And I don’t know what it is that you’ve been putting off, but I’ve got a mental list of things piled up on my brain that are taking up waaaay too much space. Today’s easy: do that thing you’ve been meaning to do. And if you’ve got a couple things, feel free to get a gold star by doing those things too.

Today’s Resolution: Take a Brain Dump

Sundays are great for relaxing and they’re also great for prioritizing. So for today’s resolution, make a list of everything you need to do today, next week, the week after that, and for as far as your brain can see. Not to be crude, but take a “brain dump”. This little practice is great stress-reliever and often reminds you that, when laid out in a list, your to-dos aren’t as prodigious as they are when they’re all stuffed into your Herculean brain.

Today’s Resolution: Play/Don’t Play a Video Game

First of all, this photo is hilarious, is it not? Secondly, this resolution could go both ways, but the rules are simple. If you play video games every day, don’t play them today. If you don’t play video games very often, get into them.

Here in our little Rhode Island boathouse, we have an original NES and the day I brought it home from my mom’s attic it was like being in first grade all over again. On the other hand, I got bored with Angry Birds after the first ten minutes. So, choose whatever suits you.

Cellphone games, NES emulators, actual console games and web games on AdultSwim are all acceptable. Patrick’s also a non video game dude (possibly my favorite trait about him), but is dying to play Skyrim. So… it shall be a day of games!

Today’s Resolution: Donate Your Extra Clothes

There’s a plethora of places that want your old clothes. Maybe you got skinnier, or maybe you chubbed up over the holidays like I did. I know that you think you’re going to want to wear those clothes again when you lose the weight, but the truth is that you’re gonna want new clothes to show off your bodacious bod. And if you lost weight and are currently saving your fat clothes, for ***** sake, donate them already!

Today’s Resolution: Grocery Shop Like a European

In many parts of Europe, (I’m making this up from heresy as I go along), folks don’t just go around spending $200 a week on groceries and then wasting half of it every seven days. No, instead they go shopping for food as they need it. Less food is wasted, and ingredients are a heck of a lot fresher. Today, instead of sticking with your usual dinner routine, take a trip to your local grocer or farmers market with one meal in mind: dinner. Shop for only, and exactly, what you plan on cooking for dinner.

Today’s Resolution: Appreciate the Internet

Today is a planned black-out for many of your favorite websites as a statement against the businesses (Walmart, Adidas, Apple, Microsoft, Dell, Coach, Comcast, CVS, Ford, Johnson & Johnson and so many more)  and politicians who supported the now extinct  Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Thankfully it was denied from the White House, but it’ll be back in another form, and Protect IP Act (PIPA – the Senate’s version of the act) is still being amended. More about those two.

Today’s Resolution: Write a Haiku

A Haiku or /ˈhīˌko͞o/ is defined as “a poem of seventeen syllables, in three lines of five, seven, and five, traditionally evoking images of the natural world.” I haven’t written a haiku since my creative writing class in college, and I’ve never been very good at them anyway, but I look at them as a fun sort of troubleshooting exercise.

Today’s Resolution: Fake Plan Your Dream Vacation

Dreams are just things we haven’t done yet, and there’s no better way to do the things you dream of, than to start planning. So today your goal is to window-shop your dream vacation. Pretend that you’re leaving in six months and research flights, hotels you’d want to stay in, and excursions you’d want to do. Who knows, you might just find out that it’s not as far out of reach as you thought… or maybe it is. Either way, it’ll be fun to plan.