By Marty Douglas
I thought I would share some resolutions I haven’t come close to achieving – but they are so well intentioned, I hate to admit defeat. Feel free to nod your head if you have shared my pain.
To lose weight. I quit smoking at age 40, succumbing to mental pressure from my mother. Thanks to her, I gained about 40 pounds and I wasn’t svelte to begin with. My snappy comeback to suggestions I try swimming is “if swimming is supposed to be good for you, explain whales!” Twenty-eight years later – pause while you do the math – I hover, to use a lighter than air expression out of context – at around 255. My doctor’s annual assessment is, “Well at least your weight is stable.” The resolve to lose weight resolution inevitably leads….
To exercise more. I usually get to the gym around three times a week for an hour of cardio and weight training. But after a couple of runs down the ski hill I’m a candidate for cardio but it’s an infarction, not a regimen. I think I do well for my age but could do better. Jim Rohn had me pegged when he said, “Eating seven apples on Saturday night instead of one a day isn’t going to get the job done.”
To finish my bachelor’s degree. In the late ’60s, I came to my senses and realized I would enjoy university far more by taking courses I was interested in rather than following a curriculum towards a career I was yet to determine. So I stopped the fruitless quest to obtain a foreign language credit, having wasted the professors’ time through French, German, Spanish and – laugh out loud – Russian. Countless hours had been spent in the reference room of the library viewing calendars from universities across North America and around the world to no avail. In the ’60s, if you wanted an arts degree from the University of New Delhi, you had best know Sanskrit and English. As a result, I’m one credit course short of a BA. And it isn’t lost on me that my almost alma mater came to their senses and dropped the language credit requirement in the decades following my departure. Who knows – with a little more “je ne sais quoi” I could have been a teacher, now pensioned off with a closet full of Harris Tweed sports coats.
To eat more healthily. But seriously – have you tried tofu? I’m told if I crossed over to a vegan diet I would miss bacon the most. And pork crackling. So, choosing to stay firmly in the meat department requires considering other aspects of my eating habits I could improve. So – no more peanut butter and mayonnaise on white bread. From now on, only on whole wheat.
To reduce my alcohol intake. My first doctor – the one who would sit on the clinic steps with me and share a smoke – is long retired and still alive today. He told me a daily glass of wine was appropriate. He failed to limit the size of the glass so that’s an experiment in progress. I’ve also tried the same approach with martinis and so far have discovered that over-stuffed olives in a five-ounce glass confirm Archimedes Principle and prevent scurvy but fail to diminish the urge to get up and dance.
To read books from the bibliography of a Nobel Prize winner. But damn it, there aren’t enough murders or steamy love scenes and I hate looking up words or pondering philosophy. Don’t get me wrong; I’m a feverish reader, usually two on the go at once. One self-help or general interest and a best seller or mystery genre. Lee Child, Stephen Leather, Peter Robinson, Robert Crais, Michael Connelly and Stephen Hunter come with me on every holiday in my Kobo Reader. But then in the lit section of the weekend Globe and Mail I’m exhorted to read the latest offering from Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje or John Ralston Saul. (Don’t get me wrong, I think Alice is a fine writer and have been of that opinion ever since her lawyers wrote me a very pointed letter over a real estate purchase she attempted decades ago. I have received no correspondence from the other authors or their legal representatives and so have no opinion of their efforts.)
To be a better writer. Or at least less delusional. Asked to rate myself, I think I’m a pretty adept writer. And then I came across one fragment of a sentence from columnist Tabatha Southey in the Grope and Flail, June 1, 2013: “. . . it explains almost every left-wing protest I’ve attended – the ones with lots of people and no good chants, where half the attendees think that the crowd should march to another location and the rest are still trying to get their candles lit.” Isn’t that a perfect summary of the left, written in a fluent and amusing style? Such craftsmanship appearing effortless reduces me to mechanic status.
So there you are – 2014 resolutions in a reusable format. Recycling at its best. Help yourself.
Contact Marty Douglas by email at [email protected] . Follow or connect with Marty on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. He is a managing broker for Re/Max Ocean Pacific Realty in Comox and Courtenay, B.C. He is a past chair of the Real Estate Errors and Omissions Insurance Corporation of B.C., the Real Estate Council of B.C., the B.C. Real Estate Association and the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board.
