New Year's Resolutions on a Summer's Day
I have never been one to make
resolutions on New Year's Day. I wait for Easter. To me,
Easter has always been the more significant time to renew promises to
myself and make new ones. There is enormous power in the truth of
the resurrection that resonates with a new-found freshness, spilling
over into almost all the areas of my life.
But
this year, I was caught in a frenzy of transitions and chores and
other pursuits far more worldly than spiritual, I missed out on
my Easter list. Except, this summer's day finds me focused
and at peace with myself that I decided to scribble what are, to me,
belated resolutions.
They crisscross
between realizations and hopes, and have a far more keen
resemblance to to-do and grocery lists than to anything, as in a
hybrid of some kind that I wish I could tack on my ref's door to remind
me that there are certain things that need refining.
My much belated list:
One, choice is destiny, and destiny is choice.
I find it rather hard to use words to capture my philosophy as far as
destiny is concern. But let me try. You see, I believe we all
have our own individual vocation. That God calls me to become
someone far greater than I could ever imagine, and so, I should not
impose limitations on my potential; if at all, to entertain these
self-imposed limitations would be to exile myself into a place where my
wings are clipped even before I could strengthen them. Along this
line, I also believe that, God allows me to discover my vocation on my
own free will, and so I have choices.
Two, my only choice is my present. It not about the past nor the future.
I think about how much energy I waste trying to analyze the past and
then, finally I hit a brickwall. There is a limit to
analysis, though the more obvious result is an eventual
paralysis. The past are lessons and the future has not yet
come. I can speculate about the future, and even speculate about
my past, and how things could have been or should have been, and yet,
nothing comes out of it because in the end, these are all but musings
that can drain me of my precious time and energy that should be
relegated to far better pursuits. The future will take care of
itself if I will take care of my present, and the past is but a dim star that I should allow to guide me.
I think about the stars, yes, literally. How the light we see
from the star, light years away, is literally the star as it was
in the past. We're not seeing the present light of the stars,
we're looking at the past. This kind of analogy ought to work in
my life. That is, all of those yesterdays are but... stars.
They are never meant to be my present reality, they're rather, studs,
twinkling, merely crowning the night with bits of learned wisdom.
Three, there's always room for a pet in my life.
I grew up with a variety of pets, though I've never had any of those
exotic type. My most adventurous pet, if I were to call it that,
was a dalmatian, Dempsey, who as he began to reveal his size became
increasingly more difficult to tame. I've had kittens and cats
and puppies, and a variety of fish, but now I'm keeping a flowerhorn (a
gift from a former officemate) who has the temperament of a poodle (she
wants to be treated like royalty), and the appetite of a piranha.
Watching my pet flowerhorn from outside her aquarium is a splice of
silence in my life, and much needed, I realize. It empties my
mind, and I can begin to simply enjoy the sound of the bubbling
aquarium water and its delicate splashes, and the sometimes unexpected
acrobatics that my fish does underwater. Enjoying my fish in her
aquarium reminds me that serenity has no price tag, or if ever there
is, it's a price I can pay for. It simplifies my thoughts.
Four, make room for precious relationships.
Over the years, it came to me that I have built solid
relationships, a network of nurturing hearts that definitely made
worthy company for the ride. I think about my girlfriends and
lunch buddies who can engage me in conversations that both delight and
challenge my own quibbles. I think about teachers, both past and
current who openly share themselves, and not just their
knowledge. I think about classmates-turn-good friends, and
colleagues-turn-good friends, and bosses-mentors and their steady
guidance, and friends in all shapes and sizes. It is, after all,
a web that spans and expands-- a territory that broadens but only as
far as I will allow it. And the key is to keep an open door and
an open heart, and simply let them in. The more open I've
become, the closer I come to finding the beauty in the spirit of every
person I meet. The easier it is for me to eschew my biases.
The more understanding I become of someone's point-of-view, regardless
of how divergent it is from mine. Sometimes, it does take time
(some people are admittedly more difficult than others), but when one
finds that beauty in others, the lustre remains.
Five, there is nothing more precious as the peace that I feel with myself.
The bottomline is, I can never deceive myself. I can not pretend
to myself that I am happy when I am not, or that I am satisfied when I
knew I could have given so much more. At the end of the
day, I go to bed with myself, and the far more significant questions to
ask should be: Am I doing what I love? Am I loving what I do? Am I loving myself as I should?
Of course, the answers vary depending on the stage of life that I am
in, but despite the changes, I find it is always a crucial to ask
questions. For now, I am getting my yeses and uh-huh's.
But, if someday, I'll start answering my questions with far longer
hmmmmm's and maybe's, then, that's the time I can start
rethinking.
What's amazing is that there's no end to reinventing. Every year, there's always room for more resolutions, or I can just tick off from the list anything that didn't work.
Note to self: Happy New Year!
Posted at 3.6.06 by Dred
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