New Year's Resolutions

Back in the days before I owned a computer and a mobile phone, I used to store all of my personal information; phone numbers, addresses, etc, in my Diary/Organiser, which, for those of the younger generation, was actually a book in which all entries were made by hand, with a pen. (Gasp!)

Each year, when I began my new Diary/Organiser, I would start out writing everything in my very best handwriting. Unlike today’s electronic data storage methods, there was no delete button. A paper-based phone book would usually end up full of crossed-out entries because people kept changing addresses and phone numbers.

The trouble is, of course, that as the days wore on I would often find myself needing to write something down in a hurry – an address or phone number entered hastily before it was forgotten. Remember, in the days before mobile phones you either had to write it down as they told it to you, or write it on a piece of paper to be entered into the phone book later – you couldn’t just ask them to text it to you!

So, before I knew it, my lovely neat new Diary/Organiser, would be sporting all these scribbly bits that looked so untidy and sometimes, on rereading at a later date, meant nothing to me at all. So what on earth was supposed to happen at 1.30pm, Wednesday? And this phone number? Who does it belong to? Why didn’t I think to write a name beside it?

It was almost a relief to get to the end of the year so that I could buy a new Diary/Organiser and start all over again.

Keeping my personal data is so much easier these days. I don’t need to buy a new data base each year because it is so much easier to update the old one without all those messy cross-outs.

Sadly there is no technology available to update and upgrade our lives. There is no delete button. We still have to use the cross-out system. We can’t even get a new version each year and start afresh; we are confined to working with the same old one we’ve had since the day we were born. And boy, can it ever get messy and untidy?

Still, I guess that’s why we have the New Year Resolution. Each year we tell ourselves we are going to try to wipe the slate clean and start again.

Of course it’s not always very successful. We always end up with those scribbly bits – hasty decisions, words spoken in anger, moments of selfishness. But we have to try. We always have to try.

New Year Resolutions are a very personal thing, just like a Diary/Organiser. I’m not going to divulge mine and I don’t expect you to divulge yours. I’m just going to wish you the best of luck with whatever changes you’re hoping to make – and a very happy, safe and prosperous New Year.

©Lyn Murphy 2010