No resolutions
Being a compulsive list-maker, I’ve always looked forward to writing out my New Year’s resolutions. I love the idea (or illusion) of a fresh start that the changing calendar grants and after the indulgences of the holiday season, January seems appropriate for a new regime of healthy living and eating and planning to be more productive or creative or self-disciplined, or whatever. I know not everyone feels this way and have a friend who never makes a resolution (this annoys his wife: What? He’s so perfect he can’t think of a single resolution?). Recently, I was browsing for an anniversary card for my sister and her husband and came across a beautiful card that expresses my current sentiment about New Year’s Resolutions:
Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.
–Guillaume Apollinaire
For some reason, I feel like there is a resolution in there somewhere – a resolution not to resolve, not to always be striving for more or different things. Certainly, dissatisfaction is a great motivator, striving and reinventing ourselves is the American way. But, the opposite approach, of just being, of feeling gratitude for what we have, of contentment, should be okay too.