(SitNews) Klawock, Alaska - Almost two weeks after the deadline and I have yet come up with a comprehensive self-improvement plan for 2014 (I learned this from our friends in Washington D.C.). To be sure I am lacking in many critical areas which is the premise for making a resolution but I haven’t yet made a vow. Maybe it’s because I know I am permanently entrenched in imperfection, or because I usually don’t make declarations on New Years. I try instead to address issues or deficiencies as needed rather than wait for the illusion of a clean state coming with a new calendar, but I like the idea of a resolution for the purpose of self-assessment rather than a microscope to seek out maladies. Do that too much and it can be difficult to maintain functional self-esteem. It’s funny to look around and wonder about flaws. You wonder what other people struggle with because there are plenty of times when a flaw seem unique to the sufferer, but even the most specific issues are shared. 

If I think enough about it, I start to have issues with motivations for resolutions, possibly as a way to not make them. Why do I want to change, and for whom am I changing? How do you change who you are while remaining who you are? If I did more sit-ups, would I really get girls?

Outside of self help, resolutions can be in response to an event which provides motivation or a splash of reality. If I’ve learned anything by the last year, it’s that it is impossible to direct life. The best we can do is prepare for it, so making a resolution which is dependent on all these specific things culminating in a great 2014 is unrealistic. You can’t bet on chance. It just happens and when it does, you have to hope you’re ready. You can’t resolution a trophy halibut, king salmon or steelhead to swim by. 

A college friend and I joke about “wife-ing up” in the new year because it seems that the primary goal for some is to get married to someone or something regardless of readiness or red lights. The absence of a true hobby or direction outside a job prompts some to start filling strollers with offspring, or at the very least start a relationship which is more conducive to “likes” on Instagram and Facebook as if it’s a bad thing to post more pictures of fish than chicks. 

You can’t resolution a trophy spouse to swim by either.

In all seriousness even the deleted tangents birthed by this column have still provided me no idea for a resolution. 

I’ve been reading the 1975 reprint of Roderick Haig-Brown’s Fisherman’s Winter written in 1954 and in it there is no insight into how to fish. What it does tell me is that there is so much out there I have not yet done and will never do because I am currently limited by monetary constraints and responsibilities. That book makes me want to travel, but I can’t. 

That book also makes me wonder how it feels to be that skilled with a fly rod, but I don’t want to be a better fisherman. Yeah I’ve got plenty of room to improve, but to focus a year on being a better fisherman or to fish more is a little self-centered. Of all the things to strive to accomplish, is me being a better fisherman really what the world needs?

Plus, I could just read The River Why because Gus experiments with this in a way that I can’t and has experiences I could only dream of. 

I dove into potential resolutions regarding my freelance writing career but again, it’s not really up to me. It’s up to people at the other end of an inbox or who open the manilla envelope, or don’t and just use it for fire starter.

One would maybe think that a freelance writer would want to put words together in a book. The year I resolved to finish a book manuscript was a banner year because not only did I get one into shape enough to submit, but it was rejected three times creating a new context to a life statistic - Rejections Per Year (RPY).

What I do know is that I had an incredibly blessed 2013 all things considered, and can’t think of a better place to work out my issues with the ideas of resolutions than Southeast Alaska.

I couldn’t ask for anything more. Well, maybe a full-time job...

Jeff Lund ©2014

Jeff Lund is a Teacher and Freelance Writer living in Klawock, Alaska
Contact Jeff at Email – aklund21@gmail.com

http://www.jlundoutdoors.com

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