THERE ARE NO RESOLUTIONS
Complete something.
Finish the year. Get through your work day. Write a first draft. Bake a batch of cookies. It’s too easy to say “The cookies were burnt around the edges” or “That first drafted sucked” or “My work day was hell” or “Oh my — What a year it was!”
But you have to start somewhere. You have to have something to work with, to revise, to learn from, to improve. The silent emptiness is a stagnant hole; the worst effort is, at the very least, a beginning.
Consider this monumental quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson:
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.
Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in. Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense.
This new day is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on the yesterdays.
When you are of a younger age, you constantly look forward. When you are of an older age, you tend to look backwards. To do either in excess puts a cloud upon the very day in which you exist, live and breathe and work.
This is not a Transcendentalist commentary nor a Stoicist one. This is just a man who values his life and the many things that surround him. There are no resolutions other than to live up to the principals which my late parents instilled upon me. They include: fairness and courtesy to others, especially those who are unlike you; laughter, especially at oneself; learning, whether by book or by experience; and keeping at bay those who would undermine your peace and serenity, but rather sharing your precious time with those who appreciate you for who you are.
I have found, for the most part, that treating people as human beings rather than demographics brings us closer together. I am most comfortable when I am in the act of creation, whether it is writing or cooking and baking. I’ve discovered a need for solitude and quiet time, just reading a book or sitting outside doing nothing of importance. I hope to be able to continue to do those things.
No, there are no resolutions. Only resolve.
