Self-Improvement

It just occurred to me that my refusal to set New Year's resolutions could be interpreted by some to mean that I'm happy with myself just the way I am, and don't need any improvement. Well, anyone who knows me well knows that's the furthest thing imaginable from the truth. My refusal to set resolutions has more to do with a recognition that they're impossible to achieve. I'm tired of setting unachievable goals. I can't be perfect today by merely deciding to be so, making out a list of everything that must change in order for me to become perfect, and then doing everything on the list.

No, self-improvement is an agonizingly slow process. I tweak something here, tweak something there, take a few steps forward, take a few steps backward. I am very determined, however, and even though I occasionally give up for a season, eventually--if it's important enough--I'll pick it back up.

The relative importance of things does matter. I took a sewing class in home ec back in the 9th grade. Oh, my goodness--you never saw such a disaster. I don't recall what my final grade was, but it cannot have been a good one. The dress I had to make for my final project hung in my closet for years, unfinished, before I finally threw it away. I completely mangled the neckline, and the threads were stitched so tightly that I could not use a seam puller to rip them out without ripping the fabric as well. My husband bought me a sewing machine--at my request--a year before we got married. I sewed one seam of a skirt that I shortly abandoned the making of, and stitched a nightcap that was too small for Joe's head. The sewing machine is still in its original box, in a closet, collecting dust because he won't let me get rid of it. Sewing, to me, is unimportant. I don't enjoy it and I'm not good at it. If there ever comes a time where I can't go to the store to buy clothes, and everything I own disintegrates at once, I could wrap a sheet around myself, go to a friend who likes to sew, and barter some services. She can sew me something to wear, and I can cook for her family. Barring that, well, Adam and Eve were in Eden naked and unashamed. I could emulate the naked part, although I think I'd always be a little embarrassed about it. My naked body is not pretty. Okay, a lot embarrassed. Although perhaps the embarrassment of having to go around naked would help me finally lose some weight. Or not; it could have the result of forcing me to hide in the dark places in the forest so that no one could see me, and I'd grow even fatter due to lack of exercise. And if I weren't shaving, I'd quickly become a yeti and they'd take my picture and print it in the Weekly World News! Whee!

And my joking resolution about not eating oatmeal--well, dangit, I'm 42 years old and I hate the stuff. Why should I keep torturing myself with it? If oatmeal were the ONLY healthful food available, then I'd eat it and deal with it. It's not, though, so I enjoy the satisfaction I feel when I reflect that I don't have to eat that slimy sweetness every morning.

The things that are more important to me relate to my character. Am I a nice person? Well, I don't think I am, particularly, as I have a tendency to be rude and sarcastic when I'm talking to myself. I have a tendency to be judgmental, something that was both exacerbated and ameliorated while I was working for CPS, in some weird way. I tend to forgive others very quickly, but there are some hurts that have gone so deep that I hold grudges against the people who caused the hurts. These are the things I am working on. And I work on it step by step, inch by inch, nanosecond by nanosecond. I don't talk about them, and I tend not to write about them except when I make a leap of understanding and see some real progress. I don't want to cheapen my desire to improve myself in these ways by making the ubiquitous annual resolutions. These are daily goals that I work on constantly, not something that I'm going to make a list of once a year and track my progress until my shame at failure becomes so great that I hide the list and try to pretend like it never existed.