Resolved: I Will Make No Resolutions

Just like a lot of people, I’ve made New Year’s resolutions. 

I will do this, I will not do that.  I will eat healthy food, I will exercise every day, I will balance my checkbook, I will meditate, I will post to my blog every day.

And, like most people, I make these resolutions with the best of intentions.  New year, time to make changes, start clean, improve myself, and so on.

But the thing about resolutions is that they are, really, big, BIG promises.

And you know what?  It’s easy to make big, blanket promises, but it’s not so easy to keep them.  It’s all well and good for Yoda to say “Do, or do not.  There is no try.” – he’s 8 or 9 hundred years old and a powerful Jedi. 

The rest of us are much younger, and only human.

We want to keep those resolutions, those promises to ourselves and other people, but sometimes I think we make our resolutions too big, too absolute.  Huge mountains to climb when all we have are an old pair of sneakers and 8 ounces of water.

I’ve heard such promises before.  I used to believe them.  I’ve made them, too, and I know, at the time, that I meant them.

But it’s really hard to keep such resolutions.

And it feels horrible when these resolutions, these promises, aren’t kept.

So this year I’m not making resolutions, per se.

I’m just thinking about how I want to try to do things differently going forward.  How to do them better.  How to give more and take less.  How to be smarter about things.  How to use time and resources wisely, efficiently.  How to be less wasteful of that same time and those same resources.  How to be more organized.  How to listen more, how to shut up.  How to be more patient with everyone.  How to work some sort of exercise routine back into my weekly schedule, now that all the baking is done.  How to stop mentally bashing myself and cut myself some slack about where I am and what I’ve done and what I haven’t done (yet).  How to be a better person.

And how to only make resolutions, or promises, I can really keep.

Comments

[yummychunklet]

I like it!

[Wyld]

This is really well put. It's very honest and realistic. The list of "non-resolutions" at the end includes some things I should really focus on, also. Love it!