Most-common resolutions
Lose weight Volunteer to help others Quit smoking Get a better education Get a better job Save money Get fit Eat healthy food Manage stress Manage debt Take a trip Reduce, reuse and recycle Drink less alcohol Source: USA.gov
Unlike most folks in America, Chirag Tolia is making a New Year’s resolution that he mostly likely will keep. He wants to swim in an ocean.
While it may not seem like a big deal to most people, the 30-year-old Tolia learned to swim less than two years ago. He’s gone from swimming in a pool to plowing down the Tennessee River and now wants to expand his watery horizons even further.
Tolia has every intention of reaching his goal again, like most folks. However, according to a recent study from the University of Scranton’s Journal of Clinical Psychology, a whopping 92 percent will likely fail to keep their New Year’s resolutions. Tolia, from India, moved to Chattanooga in February 2013, is emphatic, however.
“I have never done it (swim in the ocean) before and I want to try it,” he says. “I did not know how to swim while growing up in Mumbai, India, which faces the Arabian Sea. It is polluted and not very safe for swimming. I haven’t been to an ocean since I started swimming in Chattanooga.”
When it comes to New Year’s resolutions, ocean swimming is certainly different. To absolutely no one’s surprise, it doesn’t show up in the list of the most-common resolutions at USA.gov, which include the familiar, perennial favorites: Lose weight (No. 1), drink less, exercise more, quit smoking and help others more. According to the website, 45 percent of Americans make resolutions.
But Tolia isn’t the only local person who has a resolution that falls outside the norm. And, while they may include the usual suspects among their resolutions, these folks also have at least one that’s unusual.
While losing weight tops Leigh Ann Lingerfelt’s list, a resolution she says is “normal” for her, she’s adding a new one that includes her 7-year-old son, Jake, and is a bit zen.
Carolyn Toussaint“I feel like I should be more ‘in the moment’ when I’m with Jake rather than have my mind on so many other things,” says Chattanooga’s Lingerfelt, 45, a national account manager at Coyote Logistics. “I want to concentrate on him and enjoy every day God has blessed me with him.”
For Carolyn Toussaint, of St. Elmo, thinking before speaking is her No. 1 resolution. Toussaint, 66, a caregiver, says she has a tendency to react negatively if someone hurts her feelings.
“I plan to give myself a few seconds of ‘think time’ before I just react to things that are hurtful or shocking to my system,” she says. “At 66 on Jan. 2, it is time.”
Paige Goins McCracken, 27, of Athens, Tenn., an account manager at Kelsan in Chattanooga, says she has several resolutions for 2015, including to quit smoking “like 90 percent of the rest of the world,” she says. But she also wants “to complete at least one random act of kindness each day.”
“I try to do it as much as possible now, but I want to bring more attention to it because of all the hate in the world,” she says. “It just makes me really sad that there’s not more love and more kindness towards humanity, so I just want to try to lead by example.”
Cindy Pinion’s New Year’s resolution focuses on good will as well.
Cindy Pinion“I resolve to reach out to everybody I know and tell them I love them,” says Pinion, 54, of Chattanooga Valley. “I just heard from a cousin that I have not seen since I was a child. It made me realize how sad that was.”
Pinion, a bluegrass music promoter, puts on the Boxcar Pinion Bluegrass Festival each spring to honor her late father, Boxcar Pinion, a well-known bluegrass musician.
“I don’t usually make resolutions, but the more I lose my friends and family, the more important it is to me to stay connected,” she says. “Life has a way of picking us up and carrying us through all kinds of things and it’s very important that we stay in touch.”
She’s especially anticipating the 2015 festival because her long-lost cousin and her husband have decided to attend.
“I am so excited,” Pinion says.
Contact Karen Nazor Hill at khill@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6396.