Thinking self-improvement...within reason

There's nothing quite like the first untarnished week of a brand-new year, when we all have an extra spring in our step and a head full of ambitious ideas just waiting to be tried out.

Obviously, this state of affairs is both unnatural and medically risky, so it’s a good thing that human nature soon kicks in and returns us to normal before too much damage can be done.

But admit it…when this optimistic delusion finally wears off (probably around 10 p.m. tonight, when you realize that tomorrow is not another holiday from work), don’t you sometimes crave to feel that giddy sensation of power and control once more, if only fleetingly, as the brave new year grinds down daily into history?

Don’t you wonder if there’s even a single idea for self-improvement that’s realistic enough to survive until at least Valentine’s Day?

Don’t you wonder if there’s such a thing as an impervious dream, one that doesn’t crumple at the first sign of misfortune or duress?

Don’t you wonder if this will be the year when the field of String Theory in quantum physics is indeed proven to be the missing link between Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and the realization of a Unified Field Theory?

Okay, scratch that last one.

If you long for realistic self-improvement strategies, you’re not alone.

This year, I’m banking on the concept of “Think small.” (Last year, I banked on the concept of “Think again,” but that’s another story entirely.)

As a result, rather than starting 2006 with a bushel of resolutions so grandiose that they’ll only be discarded week by week like slightly rancid banana peels, I’m starting small and adding on gradually.

And when I say “small,” I mean small.

In January, for instance, I have pledged to spend at least five minutes a day performing some task that will not benefit me or anyone else immediately, but only in the long run.

Last night, as an example, when I unloaded all the Tupperware bowls from the dishwasher, I did not crudely jam them into the high kitchen cabinet above the oven where they would fall out on our heads at some future date, as is my habit.

Instead, I actually dragged a stepladder up from the basement, emptied the high cabinet of various debris and varmint carcasses and threw away the six grungy, orphaned pieces of storage-ware that lacked either bottoms or lids and were apparently placed there at some point during the Civil War.

Which, by chance, exactly made room for the good Tupperware to sit in carefully arranged ranks for future use, the big bowls in back and the smaller ones in front, a home economics teacher’s dream.

Not to brag.

What to do tonight, for an encore?

It’s too soon to say. Necessity is the mother of invention, though (or as an alternate version goes, “Necessity is a mother”) and if inspiration doesn’t strike before bedtime I’ll have to improvise.

A similarly manageable personal resolution to add to my plate for February is just a distant dream, at this point. Much less March, April, and…whatever they call those other months, nowadays. Why borrow trouble?

Or as Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” I’m fairly sure we’re told somewhere, probably in the Book of Thessalonians or the Book of Titus, that this applies equally to New Year’s resolutions. But I’ll have to look it up to be certain.

(The only verse whose source I know for sure is the one that Lewis Grizzard used to quote, from Leviticus: “Thou shalt not put sugar in thine cornbread.”)

In the meantime, I’m taking 2006 day by day.

And if this does turn out to be the big year when Einstein is finally able to say, “I told you so!” then that’ll just be icing on the cake.