No Resolutions

By Laura Forrest Hopfauf     

I’m not very zen. I’m more an emotional flood than a steady current. And I’m not Buddist. To prove this point I’m going to tell you that one of the statements I live by is Teddy Rosevelt’s “speak softly and carry a big stick.” But the other, the one that I’ve been thinking about a lot going into the New Year, is a famous Buddist saying, “before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” 

I’m a writer who stays at home with my two young daughters and am pregnant with my third. This means I spend the majority of my time doing the same things over and over again. I wash more clothes than I think we own pretty much every single day. I cook balanced meals that aren’t really what I want to eat. I want buffalo wings with blue cheese dressing and oysters on the half shell with lemons but instead I make mini barbecue meat loafs with green beans or scrambled eggs with Nutella toast and orange slices.  

Mostly my kids take these and throw them on the floor, so I have to vacuum and steam mop for the 20th time this week without ever getting my house to look clean. I sing the ABCs and take the same walk through the same neighborhood. I also wipe a lot of butts, which means I wash my hands so much they look like Rose’s in the Titanic right before she chucks the necklace into the ocean. It’s the same thing over and over that strips my skin dry. 

I used to make resolutions.  

When I was 12, I resolved to read the entire Bible, and I finished it before I finished high school. In my early 20s I resolved to read 50 books a year and miraculously I still do. I resolved to run a marathon, and I have. In 2020, I quit caffeine as my resolution and I haven’t had a cup of regular coffee since. 

But right now, I’ve got no resolutions.  

I don’t have anything else I want to give up or time that I want to use taking up something new.  

I don’t know how to make a resolution about laundry. I’m going to fold it right after it comes out of the dryer? I’m not. 

I could say I’m going to cook engaging and fun meals my family likes this year. But I can’t tell when my kids are going to love macaroni and cheese and when we are all going to cry during dinner any more than I can predict the weather. 

I’d like to say I’m never going to get tired, will always be patient, and be the perfect mom. I wish I could be, but I can’t, and my kids aren’t going to be perfect either. I feel like resolving to try to be perfect will only teach them to be anything less is wrong when it’s not. 

A resolution this year won’t make my life better. It’ll make it less fun and more stressful. 

But even more than any of that, I don’t think we need to be constantly reinventing ourselves or coming up with challenging resolutions to make ourselves somehow better.  

I think who we are is hidden in early mornings, late nights, unfolded laundry, pots of pasta, and mowing the lawn. I think we are who we are when we do these tasks. I believe every time we do them with care and love and thought we give ourselves the opportunity to become more, even if it’s not something tangible that can be captured on camera. 

The truth is the people I look up to didn’t become those people by making resolutions. They became those people by doing the things every day that needed to be done with or without success, with or without anyone watching. They became and stayed who they are by chopping wood, carrying water. 

I’ve got no resolutions this year.  

And maybe it’s not so bad if you don’t either.