![\"sisyphus\"](\"http:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/sisyphus.jpg\" "\\"sisyphus\\"")
How many people have actually kept one or more New Year’s resolutions?<\/p>\n
What?\u00a0 You say you have?\u00a0 Well God bless you.\u00a0 You are the needle in the haystack, the exception that proves the rule, the lightening that struck twice.<\/p>\n
Do us all a favor, won’t you?\u00a0 How about commenting on this blog and providing some guidance on how that is actually done.\u00a0 It will give you a chance to help someone.\u00a0 And it will give all of us resolution weaklings a person to loath besides ourselves.<\/p>\n
But enough about resolutions.\u00a0 How about those predictions?<\/p>\n
I’m always amazed at people’s predictions.\u00a0 We laugh at Madame Soleil<\/strong><\/a> but invariably engage in the exact same kind of mindless speculation as the late astrologist and psychic.<\/p>\n And how many predictions have actually come true?\u00a0 Based on my experience not many.\u00a0 I confess to having succumbed to the Sirens of prediction in the past.\u00a0 I spent mindless hours predicting all sorts of stuff.\u00a0 Predicting is very seductive.\u00a0 Who wouldn’t be attracted by the pull of being the secular prophet warning the huddled masses of the great works that God has in store for them?<\/p>\n How strong is the prediction impulse?\u00a0 Well whenever I want to figure out the answer to questions like that I do what millions of other people do.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I “Google” it.<\/p>\n Google “predictions 2010” and among the 8 million entries is the British newspaper The Telegraph predicting<\/strong><\/a> the rise of 3D television.\u00a0 That doesn’t bode well for our house which still lacks a flat panel display, a DVR and Blue Ray.\u00a0 There’s a ton of predictions by the media about the media.\u00a0 Newsweek predicts<\/strong><\/a> that someone will die on a reality TV program.\u00a0 I thought that actually had already happened but clearly I’m not current.\u00a0 Then there were the predictions of Folio’s experts<\/strong><\/a> which included one from Paul Armstrong that “overall, the media will still continue to die, shrivel, morph, whatever\u2014it no longer matters.”\u00a0 I look closer and see that Armstrong’s Twitter handle is @themediaisdying.\u00a0 Always good to predict something that you’ve already declared is happening.\u00a0 The ReadWriteWeb predicts<\/strong><\/a> “the death of the login”.\u00a0 I hope that includes the death of usernames and passwords.\u00a0 Mark Drapeau predicts in O’Reilly Radar<\/strong><\/a> of something he calls “ubiquitous crude video content.”\u00a0 I thought we already had that.\u00a0 It is called “porn.”\u00a0 And there were predictions about the economy.\u00a0 According to the National Inflation Association<\/strong><\/a> a “huge crash in the U.S. dollar could occur at any time”.<\/p>\n I feel better now.<\/p>\n The Wall Street Journal’s predictions<\/strong><\/a> bordered on the religious when, in its tenth prediction (why are there always ten?) it boldly declares “the world will not end.”\u00a0 Speaking of , even the Catholic Church got in the 2010 prediction business<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 You’d think that they’d have enough on their hands in managing the book of Revelation.<\/p>\n Predictions.\u00a0 Predictions.\u00a0 Predictions.<\/p>\n So much time thinking about so many things that we have very little control over.<\/p>\n Here is my anticdote from year-end predictionitis.<\/p>\n We should spend as much time trying to figure out where WE are NOW as we spend on where OTHER people WILL BE in the future.\u00a0 As Shakespear wrote (I think) “the only thing harder than diamonds is to know thyself.”\u00a0 If we spent more time taking an honest inventory of where we are we’d be alot more equipped to know what things we need to do to get us where we want to be.<\/p>\n Reminds me of the great line …<\/p>\n Know how to make God laugh?<\/p>\n Tell him your plans.<\/p>\n Or tell him your predictions.<\/p>\n