Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
Here we are, the first day of a brand new year. Some people view this as a time to make a list of positive life changes they plan to make in the upcoming 365 days: drink less, exercise more, write at least 500 words a day, publish at least one title a month, figure out how to use Instagram...
This past year might seem a bit different. Despite our best intentions at the beginning of last year, many of its trials seem to have been inflicted upon us. Our goals didn’t matter. Our resolutions evaporated, not due to lack of discipline, but because of outside forces. Many of us are grateful simply to have survived 2020. Of course, not everyone did.
You might be worrying that the coming year will be more of the same. Indeed, you’re probably right to expect continuing challenges. COVID-19 isn’t just going to vanish. Political conflicts aren’t likely to just fade away. Hurricanes, wildfires, floods – the planet is warming, and we’re paying the price.
In the face of all this apparent chaos, what good are resolutions? Even in the good years, after all, we just break them.
There’s a lot going on that we can’t control. But we do have some control over our own emotions and beliefs. Six and a half decades on earth have convinced me that what happens to you is not as important as how you react to those events. Perceptions may not completely create reality, but they strongly shape experience. Look at a problem the right way and it really does become an opportunity.
So, I’m not making behavioral resolutions this year, but I do commit myself to some choices. Over the next year, I will try to choose compassion over judgment, gratitude over complaining, and patience over stress. Hope over despair. One day at a time, I’ll work to adjust my view of the world in positive directions.
Welcome to 2021. Let’s choose to make it the best year ever.
2 comments:
I'm with you, Lisabet. We can't change the world, individually, but we can change how we react to it. And we can choose to shut it out when it gets to be too much to deal with.
On a side note, I'm amazed and grateful for how close I feel to you, when I might not even recognize you if I passed you on the street. But friends can be made up of pixels as well as personal visits. So I wish you and yours a happy and healthy new year. May you achieve what you want to, and enjoy the ride.
Thank you so much, Fiona! I feel that I know you a lot better after this year of reading some of your work, and chatting with you by email.
And who knows, maybe you would recognize me -- after all, we're twins separated at birth LOL!
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