Eat more healthfully
Exercise every day
Make time to relax
Travel!
Spend more time with family
Recruit more members into my Kiwanis club
Change the world
Save more money
Get organized
Start a graduate degree
Quit smoking
Ride my bike more often
Get a new job
Sign up for a pottery class
Learn a new language |
The crystal ball drops, the party horns blow, the confetti rains down, and the diets begin. It’s New Year’s Day. The grand-daddy of “fresh starts” when millions begin a sincere effort to wipe the slate clean, start extreme life makeovers, and leap forward with abandon in their list of resolutions.
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And leap they do: hitting the gym every day, eating their veggies, making daily phone calls to their mothers, reading a Pulitzer Prize winning novel per week, saying “no” to overscheduling, and feeling generally satisfied about it all. But, as they cruise along in their resolve to make good on their resolutions, something happens—a slip-up here, a diet cheat there, an afternoon snooze on the couch—and that’s the end of that. They give up, and the resolution is forgotten, tucked away for maybe next year.
But why wait until next year when each new day, each hour, and even each minute is as ripe an opportunity as New Year’s Day to try again or try something different or change yourself for the better or maybe—just maybe—even change the world?
Indeed, there’s no time like the present to make simple, healthful lifestyle changes (“Resolution: An Apple a Day”), discover the delights of traveling to new places (Resolution: Travel), get on the right track to organize your life, look for a new job, or recharge yourself toward whatever your personal resolution might be.
And there’s certainly no time like the present to align with the resolution Kiwanis International made in Montréal, Québec, this past July: to reach 1 million members by 2015 (“Resolution: Change the World with 1 Million Members”). Start tomorrow: Help your club plan a member-recruitment drive. Or better yet, start today: Call a friend and invite him or her to your next service project.
Begin your own sincere effort to wipe the slate clean of past stumbling blocks, stagnancies, and staleness; start an extreme Kiwanis makeover; and leap forward with abandon in a personal resolve to make Kiwanis bigger, bolder, and better.
And then, don’t give up; because the children of the world are counting on this one. |
