Remember when you started your school year with the inevitable speech or English assignment about how you spent your summer vacation?
It’s right up there with how you spent your Christmas and holiday break assignments — only then you also had to turn around and feel the guilt of outlining your New Year’s resolution plans!
Well, I just returned to State College after 10 wonderful days relaxing in Hilton Head Island, S.C., and Savannah, Ga., and I am doing kind of the same thing:
I have decided to start a new tradition — my New School Year’s Resolution!
MY RESOLUTION: GOOD INTENTIONS
I am eager and energized to attack this new academic year with a renewed sense of purpose and resolve. For example:
I am going to get up this morning and get to the gym and eat a healthy breakfast and just say no to too much caffeine, sweets and over-indulging.
I am going to be better about helping around the house and keeping better track of our family finances and the time we spend together.
I am going to take time every day to meditate, relax, read the paper and a part of a good book.
And I am going to get eight hours of deep sleep so I can be energized and eager every day!
Oops. I forgot about that work thing.
You know — breakfast meetings, business lunches, banquets, client dinners, late nights cramming to get a project done, early morning flights, late night returns. Oh, how good I am with excuses.
Life, as always, is a full plate of “starts”: Penn State football season is starting, hockey season starts in just seven weeks, my daughter is starting her sophomore year at PSU, my oldest son is starting his senior year at State High, and my little guy is starting his final year at Corl Street Elementary.
By the way, this really is the last year of a Battista at Corl Street (my wife is already crying!). It just won’t be the same after Ryan “graduates” and we lose our last link to years of fun times at a school we have grown to love. We love it most because of the teachers and the staff and how good they have been to our family. (My wife is flat-out blubbering at this point!). We’ll make it a great year and we promise to come back to say hello and rekindle the friendships now and then.
OK, enough sappy stuff, back to that New School Year’s Resolution thing.
MY RESOLUTION: QUARTERLY EVALUATIONS
You would think that a former coach would be better at breaking down the year into small segments so he could measure improvement and stay focused. Not so fast, Hockey Breath.
My players were notorious for making fun of my constant reminders to “FOCUS! CONCENTRATE!” But I am guilty too often of “Do as I say, not as I do.”
So I have an idea — break down the year into quarters.
I can have a New Year’s Resolution to get off to a great start. Then an Easter Resolution to “resurrect” my probably forgotten New Year’s Resolutions (forgive me, Pastor Ed!). I could follow that with my Summer Vacation Resolutions for yard work, projects around the house and getting in shape for the beach (yeah, right). Then would be my last chance to end the calendar year on a good note — the New School Year’s Resolution!
Anyone care to make a wager to see if I can actually follow through on any of this?
MY RESOLUTION: MOTIVATIONS
While I have great intentions I am also a bit more pragmatic. I am one of those workaholics who have a hard time saying “no” to being involved in good causes and helping out where I can whether at work, with family or friends.
I am also a “triple A” personality and a self-diagnosed ADHD sufferer who fails miserably at multi-tasking while trying to be too many things to too many people.
I am discovering at age 51, with my children growing up faster all the time, that I had better actually do a better job of managing my time or I will miss out on some of the remaining fun times with the kids and family.
I also really do have to start taking better care of myself as many of my friends, co-workers, and family members have pointed out to me in recent months. I am not in bad shape physically, but I am certainly not doing enough to be as healthy as I should be at my age. I thrive on stress, but it also eats me up.
I am not as good as I should be at pacing myself and I too often end up working myself to the bone and stressing out to the point that I hit the proverbial wall. When I crash, I tend to crash hard.
It’s the way I am accustomed to living and working and it makes for a much more stressful existence than is necessary. I’m sure many of you are shaking your heads and saying, “Yeah, me too!”
Stress sounds like a weak person’s wimpy excuse for not getting things done or not being able to be productive while also living life to its fullest. “Well, excuse,” to steal Steve Martin’s old Saturday Night Live line. (See, further proof I am really 51.)
Most people have vices and weaknesses of some kind. Mine is an addiction to stress. I need it. I love it. I can’t function without it. And that’s all the while knowing it’s not good for me.
That’s why I need a different strategy.
MY RESOLUTION: RECONFIGURATIONS
I need the occasional all-out break from the stresses of work and life’s stresses. “I need a beach,” my wife likes to say. I need to turn off all these infernal electronic devices that rule so many of our lives. (Yeah, I see you nodding your head. This is striking a chord with you.)
Most of us have heard stories of how some family member or friend proudly stated how they “never missed a day of work” and “never took a vacation” in 35 years of working for the company. They saved up all their sick days and vacation time to retire early to reap the benefits of a lengthy work life.
We also have all heard the stories of how tragic it was when that person passed away just 18 months after retiring from a heart attack or aneurism. Hmm. Could it have been all of that built-up stress that did him or her in?
I wear my Italian emotions on my sleeve and I am my own worst enemy (like many others, my passion is both a blessing and a curse). So I need to learn to be better at pacing myself and that it’s OK to say “no” every now and then — for no other reason than because I really do just need a break!
MY (NEVER-ENDING) RESOLUTION: BUILDING A HOCKEY NATION
So I am happy to report that this vacation was a big step in the right direction. I read a lot, hung out at the beach and the pool, rode bikes with the family, went on a wave runner, played golf (and mini-golf), played cards and even got a lot of those eight-hour “deep” sleeps that I keep hearing are good for you!
I even had my first ever pedicure as an anniversary gift from my wife. I never laughed so hard in my life because my feet are so ticklish!
So as I begin the new school year next week, I am going to approach it with a renewed sense of purpose and a new attitude. I am going to do better pacing myself and taking care of myself while still achieving all my goals at work and at home.
Besides, I have to stay healthy — I have a brand new ice arena to get built iin just two years. (I just won’t be stressed about it anymore.)
