Subscribe to the Day 6 Podcast here:Day 6 from CBC Radio

Let's Go Around Again

by Tanya Davis 2010

 Last night, we sang auld lang syne

we kissed the ones that we stood beside

and at the stroke of midnight

we all agreed to put that year to bed

we wake up this morning with another fresh beginning hanging over our tired heads

Sooo... what next?

it is time for resolutions, I guess

ok then, starting this morning I will weigh less

beginning today I will lay my addictions to rest

I will overcome

I will not succumb

I will do my best

Words like these are surely being uttered all across the land

people with a concrete reason to forge ahead with a new plan

but there is a flaw in the origin, from the get-go a seed of discouragement

grows from I can to I can't

Because, although the symbolism is here

all of us with our fresh calendars

our new page

permanence is difficult to motivate

and the ability to succeed crumbles underneath the pressure to change

and it's not that we can't change

it's just that to set expectations so high while desiring such a rapid pace

is kind of unsustainable, it makes failing a fail safe

What if personal improvement was not a time-specific commitment

and instead of a fresh start we just kept living

if life was more a circle then a series of beginnings and endings

and we could still have goals but

perhaps we would just differently tend to things

without an external pressuring

or an internal festering if our resolutions hold on our motivation's goals was lessening

... we would still grow, we could mend things

by no means

I am dismissing what the new year brings

the kisses or the revelling

the symbols or the reckoning

the reflecting on things

I like to celebrate with strangers on a concrete occasion

and have something sincere to say to them, especially

Happy new year

I'll take a new page, too

but all I have to do with it is be here

not suddenly improve

2010 can pack it in and 2011 can begin and I'll be the baton passed between them

carried along

c'mon everyone

            let's go around again