Back Up A Minute...

Have you ever considered that it might be much more effective to end a year by wrapping it up in 'resolve,' rather than setting up failure with new, forward 'resolutions' that are subject to every wave to hit our personal shore lines for the next 12 months?

How uncertain the future is as an environment for making ourselves promises! But how completely certain it is that we know the past and in many instances, we even know why we succeeded and why we missed the target.... so, let us make Old Year Resolves instead. Wrap it up! Make the necessary corrections! Turn a new page and burn the ones before!

Give more energy to what is working and what brings joy and respect to our lives. Repair the relationships where respect is not forthcoming. Make scarce the friends who depend on us too much and don't return in kind. Get out of community organizations that drain us. God and people are everywhere...we'll always find someone to help in our path.  And lack of respect may mean an end is worthy or that expectations must change.

Choose the battles that are worthy of another year of effort. Did our battle plans bring any forward movement the past year?  Is each battle worth the war at hand?  Maybe we can choose to offer agreements to others, rather than see who will 'win.'  Agreeing to disagreee works if all involved really, truly respect each other.  Otherwise, it is just another battle plan. In which case, it's not a war we belong in. 

Plan not to plan...not that 'going with the flow' is at all worthy... mostly it isn't! But leave room for newness - freshness - spontaneity. Invite someone you care about to go with you into this new year with a shared freedom that you reflect in one another and on whom you can bounce the new creative thoughts, ideas, and ideals that are surely coming our way!  

Remain alert!  Opportunity will knock!  Opportunities differ in each decade of life.  New careers, new friends, volunteerism, cashing in on investments, etc....all have a place in their decade of opportunity.  I can't wait until next year to see what has come my way by then.

No failures...only successes because I didn't set myself up with goals, the circumstances of which are too fluid and unpredictable to depend on.  Why have we done that to ourselves so many times in the past?  

We're learning.  Fix life as it happens...fewer regrets that way and MANY satisfying surprises.

Come on, 2018, 3 weeks to go and I'm almost ready for you.