A Radical Resolution
From A New Year’s Enthusiast
I love January. New Year’s Eve and Day and the month of January are one of my favorite times of year. I love the hope and the optimism and the clean slate feeling of a New Year.
Understandably this year feels a little different for most. We are tired. Full stop. Even if it hasn’t been particularly hard for you personally this year, the noise of living in a pandemic has added a layer of collective tiredness or at the very least, complexity, and most people I know right now are just not feeling it. So the thought of coming up with goals and resolutions when we are just trying to get to some sort of normal just really doesn’t sound that awesome to most of us.
Besides, resolutions, while I love the spirit and intention of them, just don’t tend to stick. There is nothing new about us in January that didn’t exist in August. The barriers we have to being/doing/having “that thing” are still there to be addressed. This prompted me to think — what if the most radical “change” I could make this year would be to resolve to change nothing.
That is to say, to resolve to radically accept myself as who I am, and love and appreciate my life as it is.
So technically that is a resolution, and definitely not nothing. It is probably the hardest one I have come up with in my 30+ years of resolving. But it is a twist on a habit I have of Type A tendencies, girl-bossing (cringe term) and generally grinding that is just plain not helpful or interesting for me anymore.
If there is one thing I appreciate from this experience of living in a pandemic, it is that I have learned to build my muscle of just “being” versus “doing.” I am pretty good at that now. And now I am ready to escalate from being, to loving and accepting. I have no doubt that practice will result in some sort of change, but I don’t need to define that ahead of time. Also, for the record I currently think I am awesome and I know and fully appreciate that my life is amazing.
However, I know I am not in the habit of treating myself like the person I love the most. The voice in my head is not very kind or patient with myself, like I am with my kids or my partner, or even strangers on the street. I “should” on myself constantly. I am not enough of X, or I am too much X. I didn’t do that thing, or I did that thing even when I know I should not.
I want to appreciate myself more, and be kind to myself. I want to learn to hold space for my flaws, without judging them. I want to grow and make changes because it will bring me joy, not because I should or because I need to be something else. I want to play more than I work. I think that would make for a great year.
Wish me luck. Sending you the same with whatever you resolve to do — or not.
