Thinking about my own New Year’s resolutions, I came across this amusing yet poignant quote;
“Good resolutions are like babies crying in church.
They should be carried out immediately.”
Charles M. Sheldon
Shortly afterwards I found another meaningful quote,
“It has never been a matter of wonder to me that human resolutions are liable to change; one passion gives them birth, and other may destroy them.”
Antoine Francois Prevost
It is true, that resolutions depend somewhat on how dire the need is….; to lose weight, to stop drinking, to stop smoking, but unless we start them immediately, they often lose their urgency, and rationalizing sets in.
“I’ll start my diet next week, after we go out for a steak dinner on Friday… ,
“ I’ll stop smoking, after I finish this carton of cigarettes..”
For myself, it is important that I truly want a result, and I have to remind myself constantly, either with messages on the fridge, or by asking my friends to support me in my goals.
I am going to start back to yoga, play my harp again, and strive to spend more time nurturing my relationships.
I have all sorts of things I want to do, but I need to be succinct and realistic about how many I can achieve at once. It’s too easy to get back into old habits, just like a plough in an old rut.
The New Year can begin with a snow storm of white vows, and end with a drift of little white lies.
As Benjamin Franklin once said, “Be at war with your vices, and at peace with your Neighbors, and let every New Year find you a better man”
As for my global goals, I have many more worldly aspirations.
But they are dependent on each and every one of us to achieve, through greater love, awareness and activism.
These goals might be best represented in a poem by the great Alfred Lord Tennison.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language.
And next year’s await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.”
TS ELLIOT
Happy New Year to you all!
And may your resolutions be "bloody, bold and resolute " :)
William Shakespeare