“It,” of course, being that indefinable quality I want to change, the one thing that if I did change, would fix everything in my life.

Unfortunately, fixing it presents an array of problems – foremost being I have no idea exactly what it is.

Learn to cook? Fix a guitar? Buy a dog? Finally go skydiving?

It’s the it that we all pledge to fix, the one thing we say we’re going to do something about, but once we do – it just opens a new box of possibilities. Which is something that strikes at the root of what it is to be human. The constant need for self-improvement. The ongoing journey of self-discovery.

And that’s why I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. I’m setting myself up for failure.

Fixing “it,” – whatever that might be – isn’t going to change my life. It’s just traversing one mountain to discover a vista of unexplored peaks looming on the horizon. Peaks I’ll surmount some day, but not all at once.

I’ll learn to fix a guitar eventually. I’ll get a dog eventually. I’ll cook something more complicated than toast and eggs (oops, I gave those up!) eventually. But when I conquer those its, they will open a new menu of unexplored possibilities. New things about myself I want to change or fix.

Which, you know, I’m fine with.

That’s what self-improvement is all about. And it’s what we should be striving for everyday, anyway.

So propping up January 1st as the watershed day where I fix it and instantly transform my life is, well … unrealistic. And just as a fun little addendum – here’s some fascinating science explaining why.