On Resolutions and Chickens

I get up the other day, all motivated and such to begin the New Year, make a new start, to hell with resolutions; I’m going to craft a plan. No more negativity. Only positivity. I’m going to take a proactive approach. No giving up things, no vices to squash – no vices left, really. Well, all right, maybe the wine issue, but does downing two glasses of chardonnay and falling asleep on the couch really count?

So, I strip the sheets, all symbolic like, forget about them and don’t wash them until the next day. Yup, one night on the – ick – bare mattress and naked pillowcases. But, that’s okay, these things happen, don’t sweat the small stuff, etcetera, etcetera, cliché, cliché. Organization is on the New Year’s proactive list.

Now, this proactive plan is not my fault. This idea was thrust upon me while driving in my new, blue Honda Odyssey listening to this self-help guru lady’s talk radio program. She’s sort of like a self-help guru/dominatrix - yelling at people who call up, but in a positive, proactive way.

So, the theme of the day is “How To Get The Life You Really Want, You Chicken.” You know, how most of us just muddle along in our miserable, mundane lives not going out and getting what we really want, what we really deserve because we are just too chicken. Well, I already know I’m a chicken, so I’m immediately intrigued.

Then this guy calls up. Right off the bat I can tell he thinks he’s better than everyone because he has that academia voice, that National Public Radio voice. The great condescending tone. All he needs is some pan flute music in the background. He’s a teacher. Of course he is.  And, of course, he loves being a teacher, but, for reasons still a mystery to him, he keeps getting fired.

“Tell me, Roy,” Dominatrix Radio Talk Show Host (DRTSH) says, “How many times have you been fired?”

“Eight,” says unemployed, condescending Roy.

“Eight?!” says now-shocked and outraged DRTSH.

What she really wants to say is: “WTF, Roy?!” But she’s well aware of the seven dirty words you can’t say on the radio, so she refrains and segues quite smoothly into, “Why do you think you keep getting fired, big boy?” (She doesn’t really say big boy.)

“I honestly don’t know,” says the Roy Genius. “I have my own way of teaching, of reaching out to kids, and I don’t necessarily follow the, uh, party line.”

He says party line in quotes, like it’s beneath him. Or like he’s already peeked behind that particular great and powerful curtain and seen the panicked, carnival professor himself. Roy Genius cannot be outwitted by such fools. He is far too crafty to fall prey to their unionist ways. You can tell by his implied quotations, he’s a nonconformist.

“What do you really want to do?” The theme question of the day. I can’t wait to find out what Roy Genius really wants to do because his eight firings give me great faith in his ability and in the success of his future enterprises.

“I want to open my own school,” says Roy.

I almost drive off the road, but DRTSH says, “Then why don’t you?”

I don’t need to hear anymore. I don’t need the Roy Genius or DRTSH to answer that question – because Roy, while being a genius and a nonconformist, is, like the rest of us, a chicken.

I turn off the radio and wonder if this is really true? Are we all just a bunch of chickens pecking and scratching about in our commonplace coops, settling for jobs, relationships, situations, that we really don’t want but stay in because we are too afraid to try for what we really want?

As much as I have snap-judged Roy I understand where he’s coming from. No, not the eight firings, but I do know what it’s like to be in a job or a relationship and, for whatever reason, feeling just a little too chicken to make the change.

I think a lot of it is rationalizing. Roy’s is not the only big brain in the room. We have all come up with all kinds of reasons for the things we do or don’t do. “I can’t change _____________ (fill in the blank). I have kids to feed, a mortgage to pay, the dog to walk, the sheets to change and forget about and sleep on the icky, Fioana Apple “Criminal” bare mattress.”

Yet, some of these reasons are valid. The hungry, teenage kids especially. And, for the most part, I think people are happy enough – you know, maybe a seven out of ten – but, in talking with friends, it sometimes seems that complaining accounts for a considerable amount of the fun. We all have lots to complain about and yet we keep scratchin’ and peckin’, hopin’ to overturn somethin’ good in the barn yard.

But then there are those random other friends (those at whom I marvel) who are, by all accounts, living the life they want. Fabulous homes, spouses/lovers, kids, nannies, cooks, sexy careers…What makes them so special? Are they lucky? Fated for great things? Or did they just one day get fed up with all that scratchin’ and fly the coop?

Dominatrix Radio Talk Show Host said she sits down at the beginning of each year and instead of making resolutions, makes goals for the year – highlights things she intends to accomplish and maps out a plan to get there.

I like this idea. I’m going to take this idea and give it a go. Hey, I’ve written this, haven’t I? These are the most words I’ve strung together in four years. The trick is to persevere, despite the hungry teenagers, despite the sheets. What’s that saying, anything worth doing is worth doing well, or is it anything worth having is worth fighting for? Well, either way, it would appear this chicken has a plan – buck, buck.