I’ve never been one to make resolutions.
I have always felt that doing so — to take whatever action, path, situation, etc — was a straight arrow to failure since you either give up a few days later or place such an unrealistic and unreachable goal in the way that it becomes very easy to tell yourself it will never happen so you don’t bother.
Some people go the other way and set their sights so low that it’s not even challenging or the person isn’t really accomplishing anything, then they stop because it doesn’t make sense to go on with the charade.
Okay, granted there are individuals out there that stick with a resolution they make (I’ve yet to find one that stuck it out a month, let alone reach their goal in a year). However, the fact they made a resolution isn’t why they were able to do it, it was another attribute that not everyone has nowadays — motivation.
That word, best described as the general desire or willingness of someone to do something, is not something you are born with or can get simply by wanting.
It’s a trait that is nurtured and developed growing up, or sometimes gained through experience or a huge sense of longing to accomplish a certain goal.
Some people would say that you ‘resolved’ to reach for that goal and therefore it’s a resolution.
I utterly disagree, since one could ‘resolve’ to wake up at a certain time each day in order to head to a dead-end job for the next eight hours and I’m certain no one wants to do that.
No, a resolution is something that was generated in an attempt to make people feel better about themselves and their future lot in this world, following a year-end bash that for most is filled with regrets and disappointments from what they didn’t get done in the past 12 months.
So, I choose to continue to be motivated to move ahead with my goals and keep up with making my family life better, without leaping to desperation by ‘resolving’ to do this or that.
Jacked about Juniors
Now that we have ‘resolved’ that issue (okay, feel free to groan now), many of you out there are like me and having been engrossed in the World Junior Hockey Championship that kicked off on Boxing Day in Toronto and Montreal.
Unlike the majority across the country, I’m not cheering for a specific team — I’m watching as much as I can because I feel this level of play is the best the game presently has to offer at the moment.
Then again, having played goal to a high level and been a hockey official for 36 years, I find myself watching the goalie and the stripes work more often than the game itself so that might have something to do with it too.
With the juniors, unlike the professionals of the National Hockey League, ever yone of the players give it everything they got each time they put a skate on the ice — regardless if they play for a perennial powerhouses such as Canada or Russia or teams like Latvia, Denmark or Slovakia that all too often bounce between the big tournament and the ‘B’ pool.
The passion for the game, the skills they bring and the fact for most of them this tournament will be the biggest event they’ll ever be a part of is something that attracts me to watching as many games as I can.
Okay, so some of the games aren’t the best quality — Latvia taking on Slovakia, or those clubs getting hammered by the big teams, is a bit like having to watch the Canucks play or having spent the last decade as an Oilers fan.
However, I’ll still take those games over watching over-paid, half-hearted hockey games that wind up in a boring shootout because no one feels like giving up a bad goal in overtime.
But that is…just an observation.