i hereby resolve NOT to resolve...

I always think it's interesting how we tend to reflect on the last year in the dying hours of the current year and plan ahead for the new year in the first fresh few days of each new year. Why is that? Oh sure, we do this on a small scale at each birthday, but the end of the calendar year definitely gets far more attention. Why do we only do this between December 24 and January 1? Why don't we quiet ourselves and reflect for a week at the end of April or July? Why not constantly? Why is it mostly always just around Christmas?

My guess is that it's the same reason we vow anew at each funeral to make telling people we love them and actually demonstrating it a priority: it's a reminder that life isn't forever. Similarly, the end of each year puts us face to face with an end. Not so final as death, obviously, but an end nonetheless. And ends scare us a little.

The end of each week has us wondering where the time went, the end of each month leaves us breathless at how fast it flew by, and the end of each year seems to bring us face to face with our lives, our mortality. Without meaning to sound morbid, we won't live forever, so New Years Day feels like we've somehow made it past a critical day and NOW is the time to decide to live life the way we know we should. THIS YEAR; THIS TIME. WE PROMISE.

But after the loss of another year, after the warm holiday glow is past, reality bears down on us like ever before, schedules resume, and life as we've known it returns. We slip back into our old selves very comfortably, very casually, without even realizing it. Many of the promises are only a memory. Some, not even that.

So this year, like the last, I make no promises. My resolve this year is simply to change. At least a little. At least as much as I did over the last year. I simply want ME to be a little different a year from now. I want to see that I've been more PURPOSEFUL and DELIBERATE. What I want most is to sit here a year from now, knowing I've reflected, examined, and re-tooled on a regular basis (preferably daily, but no less than monthly!!) so that I don't feel the need to make sweeping, virtually impossible to keep, would-be life-changing promises next January. EVERY day is the beginning of a new year.

I want basically to continue working on some of last year's "non-resolutions": to finish my two-year reading-through-the-Bible plan; to continue pursuing a more active lifestyle, and learning to appreciate healthier eating habits; to continue practising hospitality, and make my focus serving others rather than how much effort it requires. I also want to make spending time with God more of a habit. It seems to come and go in phases and I'd like it to just be an automatic thing every day.

So those are my main goals for this year. Nothing extraordinary, really. And as long as there's noted improvement in these areas at the end of this year like there were at the end of the last, I will have been a success.

How about you? How and/or in what areas will you be a success this year?