Buy my 2013 resolutions
.jpg?w=728)
By Oh Young-jin
Managing editor
With the New Year just around the corner, I have decided to live up to the year-end spirit of giving and sharing. The following is my list of resolutions for 2013 that you can take for a song or buy at a price of your choosing. All proceeds will be sent anonymously to the small donation box for Unicef at my favorite convenience store.
No.1: Laugh more
You may think it is not worth being included in the New Year resolutions because you believe you can laugh anytime you want. But try and you will be surprised to find that laughing doesn’t come easy.
Some people appear to be born with a no-laugh handicap, while others acquire it from birth.
Those with this problem often don’t realize their affliction and, when they do, try to conceal it. As with any illness, it tends to get worse through denial with damages often permanent and irreversible.
One notable side effect is an extreme case of seriousness that proves to be highly contagious to other people. If you find a room of adults with their facial expressions frozen as if in a death mask, you should take it as a warning.
No gas mask or vaccine shots can prevent you from contracting it. You can either avoid the scene of the outbreak or laugh out loud. Laughter is the best medicine that can prevent and heal you from this sometimes-terminal disease. The power of laughter can gain potency many times, if it comes with a good joke.
Try this joke: what can you never have for breakfast? The right answers are lunch and dinner.
If you think the joke is not amusing and is not worth a laugh, try and laugh still. You are the root cause of your no-laugh illness so the cure should start with you. In other words, the more effort you make, the better chance you have of finding a cure.
By now, you may think my laughing resolution sounds more like a quack shrink’s two-bit psychobabble. For the detractors, I want to remind them that it is free. But bear with me until the next one.
No. 2: Cry more
You are half correct to guess that all entries in my list will end with more. You could be 50 percent more right, if you finish my column.
More to the point, you are likely to wonder what crying should have to do with my New Year wish.
In my case, it appears that the aging process has finally caught up with me and tipped my hormone balance because I lately often find myself crying while watching soaps or movies. I wanted to cry loud and hard but successfully restrained watching Inspector Javert on Monday agonizing over the fact that his life was spared by Jean Valijean, the jailbird he pursued throughout his life.
Baffling is the fact that I cry about things that others don’t shed the smallest tears over ― such as professional baseball games.
But I have somehow made peace with myself by accepting that it is okay for a man to cry.
I am the product of a Confucian education (I think it is or perhaps not) that a man is allowed to cry only three times in his life ― at birth, at the death of parents and when his nation is taken away.
Now, I am self-educated and liberated because, through crying, I feel catharsis and reach an emotionally cleansed slate, ready to take on new, bigger challenges.
Crying more successfully requires a two-step approach. At first you feel embarrassed to cry when others are present. I suggest that you cry alone or in darkness as when you watch a movie. Then, when you feel bold and confident, try and cry in public. I am not suggesting you cry like a baby. Bring dignity to your crying.
No. 3: Praise more
It goes two ways ― praise yourself more and praise others even more.
Our old saying goes, “Praise can even make a whale dance.”
This signifies the power of praising.
The whole process starts with you becoming that happy dancing whale.
If others don’t compliment you, you should compliment yourself so you can start a virtuous cycle of praising each other.
Then, you may think about how and why you compliment yourself. One way is to stand in front of a mirror, say “Cheese,” and tell yourself that it is the best smile you have ever seen.
Once you feel upbeat, start complimenting others. You may give your husband or wife a peck on the cheek and say, “You are the best.”
To your kids going to school, you will say, “Enjoy the world. It’s yours for the taking.”
The world often proves to be made of the shapes and colors you would choose to see. One moment, it’s the end of the world. The next, you may feel it’s not so bad. So what is good about having the face of a man suffering from a severe case of constipation?
I have a couple more in my “more” series but, as I am writing this column, I feel my resolutions are so good that I should charge anyone who wants more. As I said, the proceeds will be used for children’s causes.
I have a “less” series: eat less, curse less, fight less, etc. But I am quite sure that you can take them as clues and write your own “less” resolutions.
For you all, I wish the best New Year of your life.