New Year's Resolutions Prep

I hope everyone had a happy holiday weekend. While I enjoyed my days off, I was glad to be back at work this morning. I think it has something to do with the predictability of the work-week schedule. It's nice and regular. There are so many events in the next eight weeks that it's kind of nice to have "normal" days in the midst of the mild chaos.

Even though we haven't even reached Christmas yet, I've been thinking about New Year's Resolutions. (This is, of course, on top of the obligatory resolutions of 'eat better' and 'exercise more'.) I've been thinking about resolving to change certain things about me. I'm a Mother Hen/Control Freak. I've been that way since High School, probably even before that. This means that I've got a certain number of non-strengths that get me into trouble. For example, I'm miserable at asking for help but I'm realizing that I may be slowly drowning in all the stuff I pile on my sometimes over-loaded plate.

Sometimes I want to do it myself because I think I'll do the best job at it. Sometimes I want to do it myself because if I foul it up, I will have no one to blame but myself. Sometimes I want to do it by myself because I want the satisfaction of the achievement. Sometimes I want to do it myself because I don't want to burden other people. Sometimes I want to do it myself because I don't trust that other people will do it right, or even at all. Sometimes I want to do it myself because I think I "should". But regardless of the reason, I'm feeling that I'm standing at the base of a mountain of stuff that has to be done and is precariously close to toppling over and crushing me.

But even as I sit here and think about resolutions, I can't quite see how I could resolve to be something other than what I am. I'm not really going to change. I don't believe that people ever really, really do. I'm never going to be anything but the Mother Hen that has to be in control of everything. Because how would you change that? How do you even begin to change elemental aspects of your personality? Maybe you could even ask, "should you change?" Because while I am feeling totally and completely overwhelmed and stressed out, I haven't drown yet. I haven't been crushed by all that stuff yet. And I made it to the ripe ol' age of 30 this way and I'm at least some sort of functioning adult, so something must be working.

So while I'd like to resolve to relax more and delegate more responsibilities to others I just don't see that happening. I think a better resolution for 2008 would be to learn how to cope with the fallout of my choices, which seems much more realistic and attainable.