Resolutions

Happy New Year Friends and Welcome to 2014!

Around this time of year people start thinking about all the things they want to change about themselves and their lives.  They consider all of the negatives from the previous year and become optimistic about leaving them all behind starting now.  Then they make big promises to themselves, usually grand but vague, describing how they will be better people now than they were before.  Soon enough however, (I heard today the average is 3 weeks later) those sweeping promises begin to fall to the wayside and old habits are settled back into until the next January when all is repeated.

Primarily for the reasons described above, I have never been too keen on the idea of New Year's Resolutions.  I think a person should try to be his best all the time, not save it up for a few weeks at the beginning of the new year.  I also think that making such huge commitments to change all at once will only cause people to become frustrated when they inevitably slip, leading them to give up and feel angry at themselves for their inability to change overnight.

Apparently there is also a new trend of people choosing not a tangible goal, but a word to live by in the coming year.  This still seems fuzzy to me as I don't want to choose a word to live by that will end up not being applicable to my life this year.  It also seems to have a similar likelihood of being broken or forgotten about fairly quickly.  (Maybe I'm just being pessimistic though.)

With that said, for now at least, I will try to keep up the goal I set for myself in 2013 (not at New Years mind you).  Over the past several months I have worked to stop saying no.  I've spent a great deal of my life trying to protect myself with that tiny, powerful word.  No to opportunities to be social, to step out of my comfort zone, to have fun.  All because I was afraid I might say the wrong thing, make a mistake, or look foolish.  So, recently I have been working very hard to reverse that so that I start living freely and truly enjoy life.  It's something that I have to consciously work for, but so far I am loving the results and hope to continue to progress in 2014.  However, it will be just that, a progression of prior changes, not an overnight identity change.

2013 was a wonderful year for me and I only hope that 2014 will hold just as much fun, love, and growth.