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No more excuses or resolutions: I want to be better, healthier person


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It’s that time of year when we all make resolutions to improve our lives. We make self-promises to lose weight, exercise and read more books.

We resolve to serve more hours as volunteers, attend church more frequently and be a little nicer.

I’ve made resolutions every year. I start with good intentions. But I still haven’t lost any weight. I still don’t exercise regularly. I don’t have time to read books. I’m not proud of my lack of progress, but I have lots of excuses – some of them good – for why they didn’t work out for me. I guess we all have our reasons.

This year, I’m not going to make another blueprint to be healthier and happier, because I may fall back into my old routine. Instead, I vow to understand why things happen around me. Unnecessary thoughts lead to distractions.

From this point forward, I want to understand …

• Since I came down with COVID three days before Christmas, I can’t stop wondering why you can’t smell or taste anything when you’re sick except cold medicine. When I was sick, I couldn’t taste food for a week. I made prime rib for Christmas dinner, and I was told it was the best-tasting meal I couldn’t taste. I have to take everyone else’s word for it.

I refuse to eat beef liver, sushi and okra, but my senses are so challenged right now, it’s possible to sneak them past me if I keep my eyes closed.

But put a blindfold on me, I can identify every brand of daytime/nighttime cold medicine.

• Why does anyone waste time trying to figure out cryptocurrency? Nobody has been able to tell me exactly what cryptocurrency is, and with the creator of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, about to join the prison league pickleball team of disgraced investor Bernie Madoff, WorldCom’s Bernie Ebbers, Enron’s Kenneth Lay and Adelphia’s John Rigas, I don’t want to know. Besides, at my age, I’m going to stay away from anything with the word “crypt” in it.

• I can’t figure out why very few drivers will stop to let you pull out of a parking space. It’s hard enough when you’re trying to leave the grocery and you’ve got a testosterone-dripping pickup truck on one side and an SUV on the other. It’s like trying to pull out of a canyon with a blindfold. As a favor, don’t weave around me when I’m halfway out of my space. Please.

• Why I’m so afraid of my SmartWatch. Maybe it’s because minutes after I bought it, it sent me an alert I was 22 minutes away from my favorite sports bar. How did my watch know I was going there? I just put it on. I never mentioned the place. Was it following me before I bought it? What scared me the most is that’s exactly where I was going. Talk about artificial intelligence.

• Why anybody cares about Prince Harry and Megan Markle or their documentary on Netflix. If the subscription on-demand service is serious about stopping viewers from sharing login information, it should offer the series for free. Suddenly, network programming won’t seem so bad.

• Cellphone conversations in public. It used to be easy to see who had mental challenges in public. They were the people walking around talking to themselves. Now it’s hard to separate them from people with their earbuds. While we’re at it, don’t talk on speakerphone when you’re in a public place. I don’t care what time Regina’s “old man” came home last night.

In reality, there aren’t a lot of pressing issues keeping me from making goals – and achieving them. Cellphone calls and a snotty nose won’t keep me from trying to be a better person.

Wish me luck.