Resolutions get a bad rap for a lot of things. For one, they're like Beanie Babies: very few people hang on to them, and the few who do end up rich and envied. For another thing, resolutions are schismatically associated with bad, unpleasant, hard things like "wake up an hour earlier every day", or "take only cold showers", or worse yet "stop eating bacon". Just calm down, buckaroos and buckarettes. No need to go crazy.
So many hard and unpleasant days or maybe weeks are spent in January by people who believe they must feel bad in order to have a valuable resolution. You're wasting a very great month and only bringing embarrassment upon yourself when February rolls around and you have to sheepishly face your friends and family with a lame excuse as to why you are no longer "on track to meet your goal".
There's a simple problem.
You know what they say in the photography business: If the resolution is low, increase the focus!
(With the great understanding that a large multitude of my friends are professional photographers and most of them are readers of this blog, I must admit that I legitimately do not know if photographers ever say that, because that literally just fell out of my head just now. But, I'm a generous sort. You can use that if you want to and especially if it's factually correct. You don't need to send me a private message schooling me on all the finer points of cameras, photography and print, because honestly, I'd only forget everything the next day. Thank you for your cooperation.)
Aha! Focus! Now why didn't you think of that, it's as obvious as the Snapchat filters on a basic white girl's profile picture.
All I'm trying to say is this: in 2019, make your resolutions very intentionally and with a very clear goal in mind for the new year. Otherwise, you are just spinning your wheels in the mud hole of pointless social media postings. Increase your focus!
Without further adieu, my list of resolutions.
I resolve to:
1. Not write "2018" when I mean to write "2019". (So far so good)
2. Avoid uncreative and non-relatable clichés like someone you texted avoids talking to you at the grocery store because he hasn't got around to texting you back. (And what's with that guy? Pshpshpsh)
3. Eat garlic bread (Yes, please, Mark, PLEASE!)
4. Own a piece of Toledo. (No particular reason, I just think Toledo is funny, and it's fun to say, so it's a punchline for a lot of jokes.)
5. Use more parentheses in this blog (c'mon, who doesn't like them?)
6. Write a hit country song and get an A-lister to record it. (Do you know a guy? Can anyone connect me?)
7. Star in the Muppet adaptation of The Music Man. (Do you know a frog? Can anyone connect me?)
8. Become a voice actor and sing a song for a Disney animated feature. (Do you know a mouse? Can anyone connect me?)
7. Learn to count. (Someday, right?)
10. Launch The Real Mark Wimberley World Tour. (Which pointedly excludes Toledo for the aforementioned reasons)
11. Get a shorter list of resolutions.
12. Own a llama, name him Camel, let him park his cars in my suitcase, so I can say "Alpaca Camel lot" when it's time to put things in my suitcase to leave on my World Tour. (Sheesh, I'm gonna fire my writers for that one. Strike that last one from the records, please. It didn't even make sense.)
12. Hire good writers. (Do I gotta do EVERYTHING?!)
13. Become a millionaire. (Do you know a bank? Can anyone connect me?)
14. Dream big (I know, this one is a little out of my comfort zone.)
15. Get to 15 resolutions (Done)
Of course, you can guess from reading the above list I have narrowed my focus perfectly. That focus is me. It's as if the entire world revolves around me. Boy that sure feels good. Good thing I have infinite energy, unlimited resources, no bad days, and the ability to fix other people's shortcomings, because it's gonna take all that to make this list of 15 resolutions come true.
....Sure doesn't seem like I'll get much done this year now that I write that out loud.
Matthew 6 says:
24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the
one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the
other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life,
what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall
put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do
they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye
not much better than they?
27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his
stature?
28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies
of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his
glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which
to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe
you, O ye of little faith?
31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or,
What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for
your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his
righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow
shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the
evil thereof.
Thus, my first and foremost resolution will be to seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness. At the end of the day, owning Toledo would be a barrel of laughs, but it means nothing because one day, Toledo will whither away like everything else on this earth. THAT'S putting things in the right focus.
Now, on to Toledo...
Please share your resolutions with me! I'd love to know what you got!
