I don't do resolutions. At least not on New Year's Day. I consider myself sort of a "work in progress" throughout the year, and I try to patch and stitch as I go along. The same things about myself which drove me crazy years ago tend to still haunt me, so it's not as though I don't know what I need to work on. Every morning I wake up with the best of intentions and some days I manage better than others. I want to lose weight. I want to keep in touch with all the people I love. I want to live in a clean house (Hey. It could happen.) I want to exercise more and read more and write more and.....no sane human being would expect all that stuff to happen at the same time. Getting older tends to teach people to cut themselves a little slack, or at least I think it should.
The world isn't perfect. The weather isn't perfect. The politicians aren't perfect. Are we seeing a pattern here? A standard line of mine has become "If this were perfect we wouldn't need Heaven" and that's glib, but it's true. Don't expect perfection from the world. If the world were perfect, if human beings were perfect, where would we get a chance to practice our compassion and love and forgiveness and patience? The trickiest part of this line of thought is when we have to include ourselves. It's tough to forgive ourselves for not being perfect.
I hit seventy this year and I'm still struggling to believe in myself and to stick my nose out of my comfort zone So I'm taking piano lessons once a week. I took them once before, but told myself I wasn't very good at it and probably never would be, so I stopped. Big mistake. I'm trying again, this time with the attitude that I just want to enjoy it. If I get better (and to my amazement that seems to be happening at least a little), great. If not, I'll just play when nobody is at home. And I'll enjoy it.
I've been talking for over a year about launching a career as a voice over actor, and I've had a million excuses on why I haven't "launched" yet. So today I contacted someone who designs websites for the VO crowd and I'm waiting to hear back. I hate computers. I'm terrified of editing out all the extraneous noises that pop up during a recording. I'm not crazy about staying in my tiny walk-in closet, where I record, for any length of time because it's positively claustrophobic, but I'm determined to do it.
And I keep shelling out money to keep this little blog, even though I hardly ever write these days. I'm going to try to be better about that, too, because I actually enjoy this once I sit down. The hard part is sitting down. The things that bring us joy are the things we are good at usually. And the things we're good at are our gifts. They don't have to be the best gifts, or the biggest, or the shiniest, or the loudest, or the strongest, or the most famous. We all have something that makes us smile, that brings peace to that crazy whirling gyroscope inside. We're supposed to use those gifts. So let's think about that for a minute. Maybe this is the year you'll find your gift or nurture the ones you know you have, but have been neglecting. You deserve that smile. That quiet space inside
I'm going to work on that. But it's not a resolution. It's a promise.
The world isn't perfect. The weather isn't perfect. The politicians aren't perfect. Are we seeing a pattern here? A standard line of mine has become "If this were perfect we wouldn't need Heaven" and that's glib, but it's true. Don't expect perfection from the world. If the world were perfect, if human beings were perfect, where would we get a chance to practice our compassion and love and forgiveness and patience? The trickiest part of this line of thought is when we have to include ourselves. It's tough to forgive ourselves for not being perfect.
I hit seventy this year and I'm still struggling to believe in myself and to stick my nose out of my comfort zone So I'm taking piano lessons once a week. I took them once before, but told myself I wasn't very good at it and probably never would be, so I stopped. Big mistake. I'm trying again, this time with the attitude that I just want to enjoy it. If I get better (and to my amazement that seems to be happening at least a little), great. If not, I'll just play when nobody is at home. And I'll enjoy it.
I've been talking for over a year about launching a career as a voice over actor, and I've had a million excuses on why I haven't "launched" yet. So today I contacted someone who designs websites for the VO crowd and I'm waiting to hear back. I hate computers. I'm terrified of editing out all the extraneous noises that pop up during a recording. I'm not crazy about staying in my tiny walk-in closet, where I record, for any length of time because it's positively claustrophobic, but I'm determined to do it.
And I keep shelling out money to keep this little blog, even though I hardly ever write these days. I'm going to try to be better about that, too, because I actually enjoy this once I sit down. The hard part is sitting down. The things that bring us joy are the things we are good at usually. And the things we're good at are our gifts. They don't have to be the best gifts, or the biggest, or the shiniest, or the loudest, or the strongest, or the most famous. We all have something that makes us smile, that brings peace to that crazy whirling gyroscope inside. We're supposed to use those gifts. So let's think about that for a minute. Maybe this is the year you'll find your gift or nurture the ones you know you have, but have been neglecting. You deserve that smile. That quiet space inside
I'm going to work on that. But it's not a resolution. It's a promise.
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