Column: Things I Tell My Wife, by Matthew Knutson

“I think I actually know what my resolution will be this year,” I told my wife as we were packing to leave for our families’ Christmas celebrations. Her enormous suitcase was filled and mine laid relatively empty as I waited for the annoying buzz to announce that the dryer had finished the final load of last-minute laundry that I had neglected to do up to this point.

It was the clean pile of clothes on top of the dryer that reminded me what my resolution was last year. Being reminded of your New Year’s resolution at the end of December is likely a good sign that you didn’t succeed. That was indeed true for myself.

My goal? Fold and put away my clothes as soon as they are done being cleaned. I humbly achieved this roughly three times.

As a somewhat successful young adult, I took pride in most areas of my life. Before marrying Sera, I was proud of my complete independence. I was able to hold a steady job allowing financial stability, keep a decently clean apartment and cook mostly non-burned meals. That sense of “I’m totally a real adult,” was what I desired, and it completely disappeared every time I looked at the dryer.

The clean clothes would somehow end up in a ball on top of the dryer, jeans mixed with work shirts and socks while my favorite sweater would hang perilously close to the floor. It was the one area in my life where I recognized my adolescence.

Something like 8 percent of people actually achieve their resolution set on Jan. 1. One infographic I found stated that 25 percent of people making resolutions don’t even make it past the first week.

Clearly I can relate. I did try to nicely fold the clothes, but found the task too overwhelming to accomplish with any sort of regularity. I’d feebly like to blame my one month of summer work at Old Navy while I was in college that made me this inadequate at folding clothes. That month of guarding a fitting room required a level of folding perfection that is hard to maintain outside of the workplace. With a standard set so high, it was clearly impossible for me to achieve. I had to accept defeat, right?

Due to the traditional gender roles thrust upon my household due to the government not quite yet allowing my international wife to work, I go to the office five days a week while she attends graduate school and maintains the house. One could look at my New Year’s resolution as being accomplished simply when I married my wife in August, but she and I both know that if our roles were reversed, I’d now have double the amount of clean clothes in the pile on top of the dryer.

If I’m being honest, I’ve never been a huge fan of New Year’s resolutions. Having a set time of year to start something is probably helpful for some people, but I feel more empowered by choosing to improve myself on my own timeline. Of course this doesn’t always lead to success, but neither do yearly resolutions. This year I plan to do something a little different.

When one of my friends from high school recently experienced the birth of his child, he started something awesome. Every day he takes a photo of his beautiful daughter using an app on his phone called Project 365. It catalogs the photos into a calendar and comes with a friendly daily reminder if I were to somehow forget to take a photo that day.

As a hobbyist photographer, I look forward to challenging myself to improve my iPhoneography while finally creating a photoblog for my friends and family to follow. In an effort to further my commitment, I spent the 99 cents for the pro version of the app. After over a year of having an iPhone, this is my first ever application purchase, clearly I’m taking this extremely seriously.

I may have failed at folding my laundry, but I’m pretty certain I’ll succeed at taking a photo every day for a year. Some of the photos will certainly be last-minute, but they should at least occur.

Knowing that most New Year’s resolutions fail, I hope that you’ll be able to find a resolution that allows you to grow. Don’t forget — growth can certainly occur in failure. Good luck on Jan. 1, and may the success of your resolutions be measured as high as my mound of clean laundry.

 

Matthew Knutson is a marketing specialist at Waldorf College in Forest City, Iowa. Find him online at thingsitellmywife.tumblr.com.