Gratitude Friday 01/03/2025 Resolutions Are Made to Be Broken

“If you're looking for a New Year where you won't have any problems, oh, you're asking for so much, my friend, so much! What you want for the New Year is actually very simple: Ask for the mental and physical strength to overcome whatever difficulties you encounter in the New Year!” ― Mehmet Murat ildan

Delaware River in the Gap at the end of 2024

As it is at the beginning of any year as we stand in the threshold of 2025, there is a natural pause for reflection and considering the fresh start of a new calendar year. As a person prone to reflection, I do so often and maybe with a little extra energy at years end. Reflection is healthy. One cannot move forward with intention without examining what has come before, considering what has been learned and course correcting to account for what one has learned. It is the scientific method! This year I will become a sexagenarian, if that sounds a bit obscene in some way, I assure you not. Google it as it is anything but that. It means I have more to reflect on.

While reflecting on life is a vital and consistent process for me, I have never had much use for resolutions. I do not think I have ever made a single New Year’s resolution, simply because I know that I would not live up to a commitment at the beginning of a year to do or not do a thing for that entire year. For me, that is a set up for failure. I know myself well enough to know that such a commitment is made to be broken, it is too big not to fail. The recovery adage of one day at a time may seem trite to some, but it is the only way I have found any success in life at doing major tasks and meeting my goals. As examples, I never set out to be a writer, I simply made a commitment to myself to write every day. I never set out to be a scholar, I simply decided to learn new things every day. Whether or not these labels fit or fail to fit me in others eyes makes no difference to the practice of things that mean enough to me to do every day.

It is true I have successfully incorporated long-term commitments to myself over significant durations of my life. I quit all drugs, including alcohol and accepting caffeine and nicotine over 38 years ago and tobacco just a few days more than 33 years, but again using the one day at a time method until they became part of who and how I am as a person. The notion on day one of either of these commitments for a year long or lifetime long change would be so overwhelming as to lead back to use. The only way to change something that is concrete in nature to me is on a short-term renewing manner. Do it one day, and then the next and keep going.    

In looking into the history of New Years Resolutions, the Merriam Webster site notes that they have been in use since at least the 1600’s. They also observe that making a resolution to do something in the New Year was made towards the end of the year to excuse things like eating and drinking too much as justified by a pledge to be better at a later date. There is some evidence we have been making such pledges for at least 4,000 years. We have not changed much across the millennia, but perhaps this year is the charm!

While I will not commit to a hard and fast list, some of things I would like to do today and perhaps beyond that if I can sustain the focus:

·       Be kinder to myself today, the inner Eeyore voice can be vicious.

·       Take more breaks, get outside into nature for a few hours each week.

·       Spend more time with loved ones and fewer hours playing the shell game seeking the pea of resources for work. Work is important, but there are limits to how much energy I have for all the smoke and mirrors.

·       See something new, or a thing in a new way to keep my child’s eye open. Every day is unique and special, and life offers no guarantees beyond death. There will be last experiences, so all should be cherished.

·       Be more grateful for what I have as a relative lottery winner in life as I have family, food, shelter and purpose.

So, no major resolutions to be made and broken this year. Beyond all that, one additional observation at the cusp of a New Year is that 2025 is well beyond what I ever expected to see in life, and I am in better shape in most ways than I could have possibly imagined at the edge of sexagenarianism. These are the things gratitude is made of.

What are you grateful for today?