Resolutions are always in question with the start of each new year. Of course, we should pursue all that’s important to us as we’re able. The date isn’t going to change whether we care enough to follow through. Much less will a change of calendars enable you to take on multiple things at once. It’s the lengthy lists that baffle me most. I can’t help but feel people are setting themselves up for disappointment. Why aim for more than you can accomplish or have cared to til now when an equivalent effort could accomplish one thing with far more certainty?! Quality over quantity arguments aside, what’s wrong with increasing your odds?

It’s not a new calendar year that inspires me. I do assess what one thing I should be doing that I’m not every year but at my birthday instead. It’s as a new year of my life starts that I find myself wondering what I can begin or renew that had hitherto gone by the wayside. It was blogging I picked back up & dusted off on my last birthday. Faced with my annual questioning of how I can yet be truer to myself, my answer had no competition. More often than not, the solution to what we should be doing is found by considering what we could be doing. So, October is now this blog‘s birthday as well.

As a shared journey is typically easier, timing your resolution to coincide with others’ may help though. The New Year’s Resolution may in fact be a case of positive peer pressure. RhodesTer doesn’t make resolutions on the very principle that he’s not willing to be answerable to anyone he hasn’t chosen to be. Everyone’s encouragement & queries as per your progress may have the potential to be helpful but can get tiring. There again, avoid random & especially multiple goals so that you can pursue something that really matters to you &, voila, have brilliantly orchestrated it so you’ll have support.

This working together toward self-improvement is enticing which is why I tend to use the impetus the new calendar creates to make a mutual pact with someone. It has quite often been RhodesTer but is just as likely to be me mum; particularly with her birthday, thus personal resolutions, coming up this month. This year, she & I have committed to getting onto our respective computers more often. “Neither sleep nor pain nor sickness nor gloom of night will stay us from our appointed typing.” Although any combination therein, not to mention a husband or two, likely will.. Yet, less often!

Perhaps resolutions have no appeal for you or you don’t recognize January first as the real start of the new year. It is crazy-making that the calendar has so changed over the ages. Even upon switching to solar from lunar, you’d think months named for their placement — like October, from Oct, meaning eight — could have kept their places. Surely the other two months should’ve been added to the end; February’s length difference would certainly make more sense. As January was named for the two-faced god Janus, in honor of his ability to look forward & back simultaneously, it nonetheless is a rightful time for reflection.

Whatever your approach to this time of retrospection — where did last year go? — or your interest in self-renewal, any new beginning is an opportunity. Besides, what better opportunities could hope to be found than in a year denoted by the symbol for infinity?? Certainly there’s an implication of infinite possibilities.. Our inference that anything is possible has found its place in time. There may be nothing more to currently do or hope for but nothing should keep us from a renewed determination at such a time. Seize change if there’s growth to be had or just improve what’s already been changed.

(|_|*ch33rs*|_|)
“Character is the ability to carry out a good resolution long after the excitement of the moment has passed.” ~ Cavett Robert