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Posts Tagged ‘New Year’s Resolution’

More Than a Resolution

Posted in inspiration, tagged , , , , on January 6, 2021| Leave a Comment »

If you asked me for my New Year Resolution, it would be to find out who I am. (Cyril Cusack)

 When a close friend asked me about my resolution for this year, I gave her one of those toothless, emotion-hiding smiles and replied, “Same as last year.” A vague answer. I haven’t recovered enough from 2020 to make a resolution.

 When my husband and I visited Ireland several years ago, we pretended to be Canadian. I was ashamed of the so-called home of the free and the brave. That situation has deepened since the mob riot attack on the United States Capitol today.

The news continues in a loop. I don’t know where or when it will end. Growth and learning can happen. The hard way, but it can happen.

I refuse to claim importance because of my birthplace. America. White ethnic heritage. I prefer saying I was dropped off by aliens from another planet. I am one human being. One. My size, shape, color, ancestry, and religion are random like an ace pulled from a deck of cards.

Growing up in the middle of the twentieth century, I was told by parents, teachers, and peers who to be. The ten commandments carried all the answers.

Life isn’t that simple.

The view from an airplane shows no detail. Areas of land have clear borders. Yet, houses, cars, and people hide. I could decide now to do a thousand things, from using time better, to writing daily, to turning into a 74-year-old muscle master.

Instead, I plan to keep my inner-eyes open. To listen to valid criticism with clear ears. To accept honest compliments. I am alive today. It is not too late. For me or for my country.

 

 

 

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New Year’s Resolution, Taken Beyond a Season

Posted in inspiration, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 2, 2019| 2 Comments »

I can be pretty dense about my own basic needs, when my focus is getting through the many small tasks of a day’s work and a day’s caretaking. (Lydia Millet)

I suspect that if I still were smoking, drinking, or using chocolate as a dietary staple, my New Year’s self-promise would be a rhetorical question. The word resolution has developed a seasonal flavor, worn-out by February, lost before the first green of spring. I’m trying a side door.

A spiritual group that has kept me reasonably sane for the past forty plus years, has developed a new approach to the New Year’s Resolution. We each choose a word that represents something in our everyday lives that needs development, improvement, or downright realignment.

The name of our group, as the illustration suggests, is Apple. When we named ourselves, our bellies resembled the round fruit. We were in our fertile stage of life. (Fertile now refers to composting.)

Yet life continues to call for change no matter how much we age. Development. New seeds within our understanding. How can we become better individuals? Never perfect. Perfection remains a definition in the dictionary, like utopia. After all, we choose only one area of change. Encompassed within one word.

The word—It must:

  1. Express a need that appears often enough to set a person back as often as daily.
  2. Be intrinsic to our own flaws, not someone else’s.
  3. Yet, not allow self-loathing.
  4. And include a sense of humor and forgiveness.
  5. The same word can be repeated the next year.
  6. Provided effort is honest.

Examples of words are: judgmental attitude, self-criticism, resentment…

The next question is how can we take a notion and act on it? Lifelong bad habits don’t disappear with a decision. They take observation, study, sometimes even outside help. Therefore, we listen to one another’s experience. And make minor thought moves, followed by small actions.

For now, I try to get through the day. So much to do and no doctor’s okay to do it. No, I can’t choose patience. That asks too much. Then again, maybe patience is a side effect of any journey’s choice. As unavoidable as conflict, pain, and another sunrise.

Peace upon all, and a blessed year all the way through.

 

 

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