New Year’s Hope


 

 

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.I’m done with New Year’s “Resolutions.”   I think the reason they seldom worked was because  they  targeted the wrong behavior.  For example, my resolution to “be on time”  never worked because the root cause is my stubborn obsession on the (any) task at hand and therefore no sense of time.  Is there a 12 step program for that?  Probably.  But I’m not resolving  to join it.

As for losing 10 pounds, well.  If  I had kept THAT New Year’s resolution, I would have disappeared completely by 1985.   Again, the problem wasn’t that I couldn’t stick to a diet,  but that I loved delicious food more than I loved to be thin.  And at my age, I’m not even going to TRY to fix that!A person sitting on the ground in front of water.

Instead, I’m going for New Years’ Hopes this year.  And only three. Another reason my New Years resolutions typically went awry – there were often so many that I needed a clip board to remember them.

First of all, I hope to spend more time with people, especially with the ones I love and that love me. I love solitude.  I love the time alone to write, quilt, play piano, or read. But these are not team sports and if the years have taught me anything,  it is is that all our lives are very very fragile.  I need to cherish the moments I have with the people in my life.

Secondly, I hope to live in the moment.  It’s really all I have.  In addition to being fragile, life is astonishingly unpredictable.  How many babies’ smiles, bees on blossoms, lightning bugs, puppies tumbling, lavender sunsets and full moons have I missed in my frantic rush to be…. somewhere.

Third, I hope I will be more attentive to the needs of other people.  Helping others greatly enriches my life and most of the time,  requires very little from me.  Sometimes all that’s needed is a smile for the harried cashier or a conversation with a lonely person.  I have time for that.  I always have had.  And while I’m at it, I hope to do a better job of accepting and loving others as they are.

So I’m not resolving to do anything this year.  But these are my hopes.   And who knows, those pounds might finally get lost in the process.

 

One thought on “New Year’s Hope

  1. Would love to share this in our GRITS …..Girls Raised In The South…..newsletter!! I enjoyed reading your blog and certainly like hopes vs resolutions!

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