How is your New Year’s resolution going? Are you still successful, or have you already failed? Without stepping on anyone’s toes, let me offer a new perspective. Have you considered making a New Year’s resolution to not make a resolution?
I know this sounds contradictory, but let me explain. I love a fresh start just as much as the next person because beginnings are beautiful. For example, the birth of a baby, a wedding ceremony, or your first day of “fill in the blank” are exhilarating moments in time because newness is encouraging, and with it comes confidence.
However, as the newness fades and as our resolution fails, defeat settles. It makes its home within us, and it rarely leaves.
So this year, a mere nine days into 2017, let us make a resolution to not make a specific resolution—one that the vast majority of us will fail. Let’s resolve together to simply spend 2017 living!
You absolutely cannot fail at this resolution unless you die, and if you haven’t heard, there is a 100 percent mortality rate. I apologize if that sounded too morbid, but it is true. So, since we are all going to die at some point, let us spend our time here LIVING and LIVING well.
I recently re-watched the movie The Bucket List. First, let me say, this is an amazing movie, and everyone should watch it. Second, it is very profound, and there are several lines that I believe are valuable for each one of us to consider.
The plot follows two 70-year old men who have been diagnosed with terminal cancer, Carter and Edward. One conversation between the men is as follows:
“I always meant to go back, but 45 years goes by way too fast.”
“Like smoke through a key hole.”
Did you catch that? Time is moving. Life is moving. And it is not slowing down for a single one of us. So, why do we feel so sure that we will do “it” in the future? This “it” can be anything. But what if we never arrive at the future? Or worse, what if we do, and we reflect with sorrow and grief at all that we did not do?
We must decide to live now and live well.
Be bold. Travel. Skydive. Rock climb.
Be committed to the season before you. Visit your parents or grandparents in the nursing home. Surprise your kids with lunch at school. Indulge in a piece of cheesecake.
Partake in joyous moments so that in 45 years you are not reflecting on your life with the same sentiment, “I always meant to go back, but 45 years goes by way too fast.”
I wish all of you a heartfelt Happy New Year, and I pray that you choose to live fearlessly. I am confident that if you join me with this goal in mind, you will have a much harder time failing.
Xoxo, Marlee
Marlee Middlebrooks 