People Can't Even Keep a Simple New Year's Resolution...

Let's face it: People who begin each year swearing they are going to lose weight and/or to start eating healthy are a dime a dozen. The vast majority routinely fail miserably...usually in a very short period of time.

"So what," you might ask, "are the chances of someone keeping an 'ambitious' New Year's resolution?"

One might logically be inclined to respond, "About as good as hell freezing over."

As one writer I found, however, puts it, "Summoning the will, the courage, the effort, and then doing your utmost, is the noblest act a man or woman can execute. Personally, I boast a history of failures: some noble, some not so much."

This writer went on to detail that while still in search of his destiny at 21, he opted to become a tournament fisherman.

"My partner and I won our first competition when he caught the only bass on a wintry fall day. The following spring, I took first place in a two-day tournament...and spent the night in my van."

Eventually, the writer learned that fishing for money all but ruined fishing for fun, which caused him to, as he explained it, "cut short my Babe Winkelman emulations and get married, instead."

At age 23, he bought a house with his wife, they had a baby, and he immersed himself in family life and an $8,000-a-year job as an English teacher.

"I tried to supplement my income by making homemade fishing lures, which failed to sell," he said, "but nonetheless saved us a tiny bit of money when I used them for Christmas and birthday gifts."

He subsequently adapted his woodworking skills to make bigger things, like furniture, and then, at age 30, decided it would be smarter to pursue things that required use of his brain, rather than his hands.

"Eureka!" he thought. "I'll write fishing stories."

His first published piece appeared in Carolina Sportsman, followed by stories in Midwest Outdoors and Outdoor Network.

Though satisfying at first, the life of an outdoors writer meant a restricted number of topics and an even more restricted range of audiences. Accordingly, he branched out and today writes commentaries on everything from politics to dog training for newspapers around the country.

The main thing is that he's happy where he is today, despite all the many dead ends he had to endure getting there. In his words, "It is the reaching, I believe, that defines and fulfills us as human beings."

His advice to everyone: "Resolve to fail, early and often, in the New Year."