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New Year

Resolutions

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Oh, you guys. You know how I feel about resolutions. You know I believe that waiting until the New Year to make a resolution is entirely unnecessary, and that resolutions often set us up to fail. You know that for me, September is my New Year anyway.

But. 2016 is coming, and I can’t deny that. So. In the year to come?

I resolve to be.

To breathe when it’s easy, and breathe when it feels impossible.

To laugh.

To live in each moment, whatever it may be.

To embrace the love, the bliss, the terror, the sorrow.

To embrace each moment, because each moment is this life.

To know that nothing – not the tide, not the weather, not a feeling, lasts forever.

To remember: this feeling will pass.

To go about my life, whether floating on sparkly white magical light, or plodding through dark black muddy clouds.

To trust the ones who say they want to hear.

To speak my truth when it feels safe and right to do so.

To know that my truth is the truth.

To remember that despite how big a mountain looks, each step counts. One step further from the bottom, closer to the top.

To remember my worth.

To remember that I am deserving.

To float, rather than fight.

To live this next year as I lived the last. With twists and turns and joy and grief and light and darkness.

In this coming year, I resolve to be.

Resolutions

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I wrote what was probably a very similar post to this one a few years ago. But, it’s time-relevant, and very much on my mind.

Now that the holidays are over, the talk switches to the new year. Which I mostly dislike. First of all, as someone who works in the school system and goes September through June, September has always felt like the new year. September is when our students are a grade older, when caseloads and classes switch, when everything is new. January has no importance to me; September is when my year starts.

The concept of The New Year, though, is such a stressful one. The idea of it puts pressure on us. This is a new year, so we must change and be different, and we shouldn’t taint it or mess it up. Everyone talks about resolutions, most of which are unreasonable or unattainable goals, and essentially set us for disappointment and self-loathing. Nobody can keep a resolution perfectly, and I firmly believe that. But we expect perfection, so the first time we deviate from our resolutions, or dabble in our bad habits again, we immediately feel like a failure. And we think, oh well. I tried but failed. Maybe next year.

And that’s not a good feeling. And it’s ineffective. So I do my best to not think that way.

When you think of a resolution, a habit you want to start or break, just start. Every moment, every hour, every day is a chance to make a choice. You don’t have to wait until January. Or April or Tuesday or 6pm. When you’re ready (especially when you’re NOT ready, because most people are not ready to make a change, there is no perfect moment, THIS is the perfect moment), do it.

And? Steps backwards, steps into old waters, and steps down the wrong path do not mean all is lost. If you’ve noticed it, it means you can reroute yourself.

Every moment is fresh and full of possibilities.

New Year’s

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I dislike all of the hoopla around New Year’s. I’ve never enjoyed the forced partying of New Year’s Eve. Everywhere I go, the question is, “What are you doing for New Year’s Eve?!” When I was in high school and college, and didn’t embrace my quirky and true self, I would desperately work with my friends to create a fabulous party, where there would be guys and girls and lots of alcohol. Just so I had stories to share after. Just so I didn’t feel “left out.” Left out from what, I don’t really know. But I desperately wanted to do everything everyone else was doing, so that I belonged. No, so that I FELT as though I belonged. Whether or not I did was moot.

So there was that.

I dislike how New Year’s forces everyone to talk about the passage of time, something that already stresses me out enough as it is. I know that days are slipping away faster than I can hold onto them; I don’t need an entire 24 hours devoted to that.

But most of all, I dislike the idea of “resolutions.” I believe in goal-setting. But I hate how everyone waits until January 1st to try to better themselves. Anyone can make a change in their life at any moment of any day. Waiting until the new year seems like a cop-out. And more than that, it sets us up for failure. Inevitably, come February, people already start talking about how they broke their resolutions, so they’ll just have to wait until the next year. WHY?

The moment is now. The time is here. Do it now. Time is precious and there is little to waste. If something needs to be changed, altered, spoken, or created, do it now.