Ah yes, a new year. And with that it seems we expect, or at least hope for, a better year than the last. It's a mile mark, a zeroing out of the speedometer of life that makes us believe that we now get some sort of "do-over" from what we didn't accomplish, or even set out to do in what we
sort of intended for the year before.
And yet, we are creatures of habit for a reason. That reason being the known - what's familiar and comfortable - offers more security than the unknown, the unfamiliar, the actions that are foreign to achieving what we still hope to accomplish. Sometimes the complacency that comes from feeling comfortable is the worst obstacle we can face within ourselves. Certainly my own life lessons have taught me this. Taught all of us this, by now.
What's sobering is that we often choose it. I know I have. It's easier to stay with what we're used to, even though that ship is on a Titanicesque path, than to abort the trip and face countless
known disappointments. Our kind has latched onto this concept in numerous ways throughout the ages, oftentimes more from a spiritual sense of atonement and renewal than a personal goal. But they both apply. I think it's funny that new year's resolutions are really just an American-style Lent that we will supposedly adhere to all year long, when really, most observers of the Lenten period can rarely last for 40 days, let alone 365.
If I haven't introduced myself yet, my name is Lynn and I'm a pessimist (Hiiii Lynn!!!). But please allow me to explain myself - I am a pessimist in order to believe in the possibility of things. So I prefer to call myself a romantic pessimist (the PC is Realist people). Yes, I'll explain. I do hope and long and dream of the best, the most ideal, the most fulfilling in my life experiences, love, goals, etc. But my actuality is to expect the worst. And my mantra, therefore, is that because disappointment occurs so often, it is better to have expected it than to have not been prepared for it. These two perceptions are clearly at odds with each other. But they are innately within me, and so will forever be at war with one another. And thus, you might call me a tormented soul...(and I might agree!) Truth is, we all are at war within ourselves in one way or another.
So here is the point. I think new year's resolutions are stupid. If I need to change something or do more or less, then shouldn't I be able to do that any old time of year? In fact to me, setting a goal up with some perennial time period is bound to doom it to failure rather than success. It's like waiting to diet until 3 weeks before the big 25 year reunion (because NOW I will lose that weight that I've been persecuting myself over for the last 15 years...whatever). To be honest, sometimes I feel like "trying" is the impediment to getting anywhere. I know that sounds ridiculous, but really it's the difference between just making a stab at it or seriously
striving for change - the conscious endeavor of making something stick. It's like when you ask someone to do something and they say "I'll try"... you know it's generally half-hearted, right? Well that's what these
made on occasion intentions are to me. They are the adult pacifiers to our super ego realizations and they usually stall out by March.
I have found that in order for me to change, I have to be pessimistic about my pessimism so that I can circumvent the complacency. It's a fine and crazy line. But the difference is in defeating the self-defeating mindset of entrusting my betterment to a time of year, rather than to the better state of mind. Because it's the state of mind that always determines your fate...
Of course I'm contradicting myself! But that's just it. It's the going against the grain of even my own concept of what will bring about self actualization, that helps me improve.
Therefore, I choose not to resolve some thing, but to be resolute about contradicting the lesser parts of myself.
Oh yeah, happy new year.
