Ridiculous - Non Fiction - all audiences

Here's this week's entry into the Flash Fiction Friday Challenge over at Now Hark This!

This week is non-fiction week and the prompt was: "this year".

I've been playing with the idea all week, but never got around to actually writing it, but ... here I am.

I hope you'll enjoy the read.

Ridiculous.

Isn’t that what it is?

Every year.

Every single year.

Everyone does it, but seriously … what’s the point?

Really?

Every year. Always the same.

You want to know why?

Because it’s so damn ridiculous and we never keep ourselves to it.

We always find an excuse.

No, seriously, I mean, how often have you said it?

How often have you made a promise to yourself to do better, be better, eat healthier, move more?

I know I have.

More than often enough.

Every year, we make them.

Our New Year’s Resolutions.

Yeah, I capitalized each letter because this shit is important!

You know!

I really want to do this.

This year.

Not next year, not last year, no, this year.

But … what is so special about this year that will make us do the things we really want to do?

What makes this year so different from all the others we’ve already had or those still ahead?

Why not next year?

Maybe next year will be even better.

Have you ever stopped to think about that?

How come we always make resolutions for this year?

Why not say “Next year, I’ll join a club and exercise more”?

Why?

Because you’re afraid you’ll have forgotten by then?

Or maybe you’re afraid that if you wait till next year, it’ll be too late?

Why would next year be too late?

Why is this year the one that will change your life?

I haven’t got a clue!

I’ve said it enough myself.

This year, I’ll really work on being a better person, on keeping my house a little tidier, on taking more time to spend with my kid and do things with him, I’ll eat better, I’ll eat less crappy foods, I’ll work out more. All those resolutions that have come and gone.
I’m probably still pretty much the same person I was 10 years ago, only now I’ve grown a bit smarter and I’ve got 10 years of experience that I didn’t have then. My house is still an organized mess, I’m still finding myself short on time when it comes to my kid and we still don’t get to do half the things I would like to do with him, but does that make me a bad mother?
I have been eating better though, and I’ve cut crappy foods out of my ‘diet’ for a large part (not that I don’t enjoy an occasional piece of pie or burger and fries) and I’ve been working out a lot more than I used to.

You know what’s funny though?

It wasn’t a resolution.

I didn’t say “This year, I want to lose weight”.

Nope, that’s not what happened.

What happened is this, back in September, we had a dietician who came by the office and everyone who wanted could go for a short visit. All that really happened was that she weighed each of those who decided they wanted to see her (which was basically all of us) and talk – briefly – about the numbers on the scale. It really wasn’t more than that and each visit took about 10 minutes. I walked out of there with a tip. A single tip on how to improve my overall health.

I’ll share it with you: drink less coke.

It’s bad for all kinds of things and I used to drink about a bottle per day.

But I didn’t cut it out entirely, I still enjoy a glass or can of coke every day, the difference is that now, I can enjoy it. A bit like a treat.

It’s really funny how something as small as that, can have such an impressive impact.

Instead of pouring gallons of coke into myself, I switched to a variety of iced tea, one that has that ‘new’ sweetener in it and you want to know what … in 6 weeks time, I lost 3 kilos! That’s over 6 lbs for those of you who’re not familiar with the metric system.

No resolutions, just solutions.

I’ve now been seeing this dietician on a monthly basis since November and I’ve eliminated – I don’t want to say I lost it, because when you lose something, you’ll want to find it again and I do not want to find that weight on my hips again – over 10 kilos so far. That’s nearly 25 lbs since September.

What did it take?

Meeting the right person at the right time.

It sure didn’t take me saying anything that starts with the words “this year”.

So … what’s your excuse?

More entries can be found here http://nowharkthis.blogspot.be/