Resolving Resolutions

As the new year gets underway, all around me people are talking about their resolutions. I've never taken the resolution thing with any amount of seriousness. I have seasonal rituals, I have “aha” moments throughout my life, and I seem to need a life change of some sort about every 7 – 10 years. But I really don’t make new year resolutions. In fact, I just made a comment on someone’s blog about not making resolutions. This got me to thinking about things a bit.

For the past twenty years my partner John and I have talked about someday taking off on our sail boat and spending several years sailing and traveling. We had finally established ourselves a departure date of June 2010. This would be my life change of the decade.

I always knew the departure date was tentative and dependent on the financial market status. However, when we recently made the decision to push our departure out one more year, I was emotionally devastated.

I had put many aspects of my life into a holding pattern, banking them for the big sailing adventure. So when we pushed the date out, I felt emotionally a bit like the financial market that caused this delay.

What does all this have to do with new year resolutions? I have now for the first time, made what I am resistant to call (but would be by most) new year resolutions. I had to do something! I was depressed, a bit cranky, and admittedly taking it out on John. Not good!

So I resolved myself to making the most of this new year. I resolved to keep my attitude in check and be kind and loving to John, to stay connected with my friends and family (as I don’t always do good with this), to love something about each day, and to expand my knowledge and skills. I have to say, just making these resolutions has already improved my attitude.

Wow, maybe there’s something to this new year resolution thing after all!