Resolutions: A Short Story By Aanuoluwa Fadeyi
Every 31st of December, I sit at my desk to review my year and also write resolutions on what I want to achieve in the coming year. My major focus is always on my career and personal life.
A particular year however changed my orientation. I added another list, and called it the “Hit List”. It had the what’s and when’s of fun places I resolved to visit. By the way, I’m Femi, a Lagos-based software engineer.
“Happy new year!” people screamed from a nearby church. You’re probably wondering why I wasn’t in church. I’m not a church person. Yearly, I sit in my house as I await the dawn of a fresh year. For me, Crossover is simply a time to write my resolutions.
I had three major plans that year. Buying a new car was the first. I was driving a Toyota Corolla and I wanted to upgrade it to a Benz before the year ended. The second plan was to lose weight and get six packs. I envied guys my age with such bodies. The third major plan was to acquire skills and move up the ladder in my career.
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With these plans in view, I continued into the year with the utmost zeal, to bring them to fruition. I didn’t realize I had put myself under undue pressure.
The year was moving ahead, and although I had joined a gym class, I found the routine too rigid, and strenuous. I did lose some weight, but no six packs. As for moving up the ladder in my career, I instead got two queries for sleeping on duty, and a warning letter for a fatal error. As of September, I had less than a hundred thousand in my account. I couldn’t even afford a motorcycle, let alone a Benz.
I fell into one of the deepest phases of depression in my life. But on a brighter note, I had the Hit List; which helped me get through the misery of not accomplishing my major plans for the year.
By December, I had given up on my resolutions. I later took the time to review the reasons why I couldn’t carry them out. The main issue I found was that I couldn’t take actions to back up my plans, because I failed to break my plans into smaller bits, in order to make them realistic. Looking at the plans made them insurmountable, thereby putting me under pressure to achieve them, which eventually lowered my productivity and overall output.
The pressure I encountered changed my mindset. After the review, I decided to change my approach towards resolutions. Selecting a word of the year to guide me throughout, I divided my plans into major and minor. The major, I backed up with necessary actions. The minor, I kept in a corner of my mind, hoping that they would one day cross into the list of major, when I get to the level of being able to achieve them. It removed every iota of pressure from me, so I stopped writing resolutions after then.
About The Writer
Aanuoluwa Fadeyi is an emerging writer and a student of the University of Ibadan.
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