's Blogs
New Years Resolutions? Worth it or just hot air?
This used to be a really popular thing, New Years Resolutions, but I get that people have often become jaded about the whole idea. I myself always thought there was something cheaty and tyrannical about them. The tyrant - you in the present - is issuing an edict that some poor slave - you in the future - has to carry out, while the tyrant has escaped into the past and doesn't have to follow his own proclamation. Still, despite the artificiality of January 1 being a blank slate, I do like to make resolutions.
This year one of my first ones is to listen more, listen more deeply. That may sound like an odd one but I've realized one of my weaknesses is thinking I know what someone has expressed or said, but I really haven't. I've filtered it through my own assumptions, presuppositions, and the particular connotations I might give to words they use.
So this year I want to learn to really listen to other people much better. Listen to their words with the meanings they give them, listen to how they view the world in their own terms as purely as I can, turn down the volume on my own mental filters and hear what people say to me the way they want me to hear it. I feel like even this is partially selfish, that I just want to understand things more profoundly, for my own education. But I still feel that putting this resolution into practise should be one of those mutually rewarding things that's worth doing.
Any one else started thinking about resolutions or are they just short-lived self-indulgent pointless nonsense?
resolutions are bs.
I think the problem with resolutions is they usually focus on changing ourselves to some other ideal...we are who we are, resolving to change doesn't make change...I am who I am..proud of it..content with it...at peace with it...all I ever resolve to do is live my life fully, authentically and proudly...and to those that find that an issue...they can go fuck themselves...
Actually, like most people, I could probably laminate and recycle the Post It Note resolutions from year-to-year, since none of them has been "resolved." Of course, if we all did that, then the Post It Note company would take a huge hit in its "Profit Margin" and go out of business. So perhaps I should continue to make new-old resolutions on the little yellow reminders and not send workers home without pay checks to their starving families. Ah.....DO A GOOD DEED....that's one resolution I have just committed. Happy Season's Best. ~Justin