3 New Year Resolutions for 2009

I know many of you wait for the last digit of the date-odometer to flip before you start to evaluate the status of your life and make any necessary adjustments. Not only is this a completely arbitrary way to fix any problems that may linger in our lives, but they often don’t last much longer than a Brady Bunch marathon. Why do they fail? Many attribute it to the difficulty for humans to break their normal everyday pattern. Maybe that’s true, but if we were able to develop more exciting resolutions, then we’d have something to charge us out of bed in the morning. I now present to you three inspiring New Year’s resolutions for 2009:

1) Create a new theory of the world

What’s the best part about the Internet? If you guessed Lolcats, Periz Hilton, forwarding mass emails, or the fat guy singing the Numa Numa song – we can never be friends. Instead, in a slightly more broad analysis, the Net’s beauty is derived in how seamlessly we can share information with one another. Consider the premise that someone can Google search “good badger” (humor me) and run into my site on pure chance. Unfortunately for them, they will run into a collection of rants, complaints, and other nonsensical babblings that will be burnt into their brains for at least the next several seconds. Point being – if anything that I put onto a blog can be found by someone halfway across the globe, then there is tremendous potential for anyone out there with something meaningful to say.

“But what if I don’t have anything meaningful to say?” Well then throw darts at a giant collection of bizarre words and build a ridiculous story out of it. It worked for L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology. I’ll be your first Tom Cruise.

We have creative minds, unlimited access to a creative platform – create.

2) Strengthen your strengths

Imagine if Michael Jeffrey Jordan had gotten complacent with his ability to play basketball. Instead of spending several hours working on his jump shot before and after practice, he decided to refine his poetry. What if Bill Gates, instead of working on computer programming into the wee hours of the night as a high schooler, decided to bulk up that scrawny frame so he could land the girl of his dreams. At the very least if these scenarios played out, we wouldn’t be able to watch MJ highlights on YouTube. I believe a much more real possibility would be something closer to the Apocalypse, but I’m originally from the Chicagoland area, so my opinion is likely skewed.

The point is, too often people focus on turning their weaknesses into strengths. You could argue MJ was doing this by incessantly practicing his jumper early on in his career. However to say that anything He did on the basketball court was a weakness in the perspective of one’s life is a few miles beyond being absurd. He was strengthening the weakness of his greatest strength.

If there’s something that you’re good at, and you enjoy it to any degree, get better at it. This planet would be much better off with 7 billion experts vs. 7 billions Zach’s of all Trades.

3) Remove the BS Brain Space

VH1, E!, MTV, and People Magazine have been molding the brains of too many people for far too long. For some reason we’re getting closer to banning cigarettes than we are removing any of these polluting sources. At least cigarettes follow the rules of Natural Selection – if you smoke, you die. If you’re okay with it, I’m okay with it. VH1 on the other hand, effects our entire species in a very dangerous way. When people spend their three free hours a day listening to C list celebrities talk about Rod Stewart’s hair in the video for “Forever Young”, Homo sapiens lose. Even if you’ve never watched Date My Mom, chances are someone close to you has. If this doesn’t scare you, then you’ve obviously never put much thought into it. The human brain is a very powerful thing. We’re capable of everything from conceiving the principles of String Theory to learning how to play a harp. Once upon a time, our species actually exercised these qualities. Technology now gives us access to almost any information that we can possibly dream up. Instead of using this to our advantage, people spend their afternoons watching Kim Kardashian freak out when she comes in contact with a spider.

These people are reproducing. Chances are, they’re producing more offspring than the intelligent person due to their power in numbers. With each generation that is guided by E! TV, IQ’s will drop faster than the stock market after the subprime crisis. No one forces you to hang out with these people, but unfortunately we have to share a nation that votes democratically with them.

STOP! Stop it now! I’m not even challenging you to put down the remote, just change the channel. It doesn’t take that much energy to get from VH1 to National Geographic. Watch something that will inspire you to learn more about the history of your genes instead of what style of jeans are in.