Realistic Resolutions: A New Year's Guide For The Motivationally Challenged

It seems like I do one of these every year. Mainly, because I think resolutions should be fun as much as they are useful. If you don't want a resolution that is going to cause you physical, mental, or emotional anguish... this is the guide for you. (and me)

1. Have a drink when you bloody well want one.

Really, can we just talk for a moment about how I didn't know how to act like the adult I am? This year I decided that I like a drink from time to time..and that I'm not a bad person for feeling like that. It's OK to get out of responsibility mode and let your hair down, providing you have hair. If you're of the bald variety, imagine you have hair.
So, have a drink. Or five. Really, you won't regret it. If you're old like me, drink lots of water. At 40, the body doesn't handle getting wasted and acting like a frat boy very well. I warned you.
Disclaimer: If you get in trouble for drinking, you totally did not get permission from me or this blog.

2. Stop looking at the nutrition facts on food.

Are you doing this? Don't do this. PLEASE STOP DOING THIS. Eat what you want, when you want. If losing weight is one of your preset resolutions, skip the rest of number two.
Really folks, nutrition facts are made by evil little dictators with nothing better to do than to make you feel like a fatty who's about to keel over from consuming more than seven pretzels in one sitting. Who makes up these serving sizes?! Evil people with stomachs the size of a grape, that's who.
I'll be right back, this made me hungry.

3. Stop caring about the fact that you seem like the only person in the world that changes the empty toilet paper roll.

Cause you are. You and me..we are the only people in the world that care. I have driven myself  near to insanity with changing toilet paper rolls that people ignore. I have cried tears anxiety, trying to track down the person who dared defile the bathroom in such a way as to not change the roll..or, GASP, those crazy people who just set a new roll on top of the old one.

This is causing me mental anguish. Moving on.

4. Listen to the music you like. unapologetically.

Yeah sure, I may judge your choice of music in my head, (If I hear that Frozen song, one. more. time...) but if it makes you happy, turn it up and rock out. I don't care if it's polka and you are dancing like Lawrence Welk. (gosh, I'm old) If it's country you're into, two step all night long. If it's metal... well, you and I are going to get along just fine.
Music is everything. Find what makes you tick and roll with it. Even if it means that people are staring at you wondering why you won't stop singing, John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt.

(his name is my name too)

5. I'm really pushing my limits with five resolutions...but together, we can do this.
    Stop thinking that people care about you as much as you do.

I'm gonna level with you. We are more caught up with scrutinizing ourselves than others are.

Maybe that hurt your ego. Here, let me soften the blow...

You aren't so different than others. (I really need to work on getting a point across in a not so harsh way)

Truly. Wear the ridiculous hat that you won't wear out in public. Sing to yourself while walking in the store. Talk to yourself like there's actually another person there. Dance like it's we are back in an era when everyone danced and sang. You know, like that guy that went nutty and sang in the rain while dancing on light poles. Wait, that was a musical. Who cares? Sing in the freaking rain. Live your life like the freaks we all are, but hide because someone once told you to grow up and be normal.

I will be over here in my plaid pants and sequin top, a shot of brandy in my hand, headbanging to metal, thinking about how I never succeed at New Year's resolutions.

I'll work on perfection, tomorrow.

Complicating Life

 I was having a conversation tonight during which the question was posed, "why do you feel people are drawn to negativity? Why do people seem to want to make their lives harder than they need to be?" I've been contemplating it all night.

We've all chosen the more difficult paths at one point or another in our lives. Every single human has done this, some by choice, some out of defiance of following the 'norm', some because that is all they've ever known to do. The list of reasons goes on and on.

Where you fall on that spectrum is unique to you...but it doesn't explain why, as evolved beings, we continue to do this to ourselves after shooting ourselves in the foot on previous occasions.

I've tried to simplify my life as much as possible. On all levels. I've walked away from the drama. I've limited my own personal effects. I have a life that is fairly structured and still enjoyable on a deep level. It is not an impossibility to have this and still have a means of excitement. Deciding to live a simplistic life does not eliminate anything good. In fact, it makes the good in life, more prominent. 

I guess one situation that comes to mind for me when considering this is watching the dance that is human behavior in places like bars. My facebook feed is fairly saturated with women and men complaining about each other. There are countless posts about being unhappy with one's love life or lack thereof. Many, many posts about a person feeling jaded after their person of interest lacks reciprocated feelings. 

Why? Why are people doing this to themselves? What is the actual payoff? Human behavior denotes that a repeated behavior is fueled by some level of payoff. What fuels the desire to seek out that which is going to hurt, complicate, or create any level of drama in our own lives?

My only guess is this: a person does not feel they are worth the effort it takes to wait for something right, something natural, something intuitively easy and good...to happen to them. 

When we cherish and nurture ourselves, we learn to wait. It's not easy... sometimes it feels like the waiting is work, when in fact, it isn't. It just is. It's a matter of learning to say, "I deserve this time of waiting, I am worth the end result." This did not come easy for me. It took many tries of restructuring my own thinking to get to this point...and sometimes it's still an internal argument I have with myself. I see a situation that I am making harder and I have to step back and evaluate my own behavior and remind myself to slow down. 

We have to remember we are worth the simple, the good, the waiting.

Love: Keeping It Real

Nearly everyone is familiar with the biblical passage in Ephesians about what love is, and while it is indeed a beautiful thing to read, it leaves out some of the finer details about love and what it actually looks like in an active way. I've often wondered how many people have used that passage in their wedding and have really thought about it's meaning. 

The bible teaches one side of love. Media gives society a whole different level of skewed information about what love looks like. We have people who truly believe that they are failing at love because it isn't all flowers and romance as it is portrayed. 

Here's the thing. Love is an emotion that is given to ebbing and flowing, and therefore, it is subject to change. 

It's the changing that seems to be hard for people to accept or adapt to. What at one time felt like a tidal wave of good feeling, can sometimes feel like a trickle of water. That is not a bad thing. A trickle of water can still keep you alive. It is the thought that we must feel everything in explosive proportions that makes people feel something is very wrong with the love they have. 

Sometimes, you have to be patient with the trickle of water and realize that after a storm...you will have that tidal wave again. It just has to be replenished. 

Patience is not a virtue for most people. Why would it be when we live in a world that is made for instant gratification and encouraged impulsiveness? Why work hard at something when we can throw it away for a shiny new model that instantly causes a surge of good feelings?

Here's why.

The greatest things in our lives are the things we've worked the hardest for. If you've gone to school, you know the feeling of holding a diploma in your hand and the sense of deep down gratification it brings, because you worked hard to get it. If you can build something from the ground up, you know the feeling of standing back and looking at it with affection and pride. Love is no different. The harder you work at nurturing it, building it, being patient with it...the more you honor it. It is like raising a child. You can either nurture it into a full fledged functioning thing, or you can neglect it and create dysfunction.

Love and acceptance are one of our most basic human needs yet we constantly sabotage ourselves. For many, it is not enough to love simply. To just take that love that we've been given and to appreciate it for what it is in it's simplest form. We have to complicate it by expecting more, altering it, trying to transform it into something that, at the end of the day, is no longer genuine love, but a warped version of it's true form. 

Next time you feel that you are struggling with your relationship, don't automatically think, how can I add to this to make it better? Simplify. Strip yourselves down to the bare minimum. Remember that it is enough. In it's purest form...it is always enough, if you choose to let it be.

Comfort In The Unknown

Nearly all of my life I've been consumed with having to have a plan. The thought of having no control over the future would send me into a tail spin of anxiety and fear. That's reality though, not having control over the future. It is a wide open space that is given to change when we least expect it. We lose people, relationships, jobs, and anything that makes us feel anchored in our comfort zone. 

Feeling we have control is a huge fallacy. It is a preconceived notion that life is ours to manipulate and mold. 

We have today. That is all that promised. 

As you get older, thoughts of mortality sink in. The urge to make the most of our time left, becomes stronger and stronger. It's a knowing that there is finality. Someday, could be tomorrow, we will take our final breath. Morbid? Maybe for some. 

We spend so much time planning and plotting our future (or for some..living in the past), that we lose sight of the gift that is today. We become so entrenched in expectations for every part of our lives..that we lose the joy that comes along with not knowing what's around the corner. Life's surprises. 

The urge to micromanage every part of our lives and the lives of those we love is basically a wet blanket that will smother the happiness right out of us. 

I've lived in a kind of limbo for quite some time now. The end of my marriage tore a gaping hole in the blinders that I wore. The sudden loss of someone I loved finished the job and tore those blinders right off of me. In an instant, the neat little path that I led myself to believe was my direction, became a vast and open world. My feet, that I had so solidly planted, suddenly were directionless. It went against everything I thought to be rational and intelligent.

And though it took me good while to dare to take a step into the void..I did. 

My past, my pain, my expectations for my future and the people in it, fell behind as I explored the newness that I was facing. I did not dance into that freedom. I walked with trepidation, and from time to time, I would retreat back to what I held onto for so long...specifically my painful experiences. Odd that old pain comforted me and made me feel like I was still safe. But it did. as did reaching back for the perception that expectations would somehow solidify my existence. 

Here's the thing about living in the moment: It's glaringly brilliant and so full of wonder. Once you've opened your eyes to it, the light of it beckons you back from the darkness that was comforting. You can't unsee it. You can't ignore the knowledge it bestows upon you. You become drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

The hardest part of this transition for me was realizing that there was nothing I could do to avoid future hurts. It doesn't matter how much you expect from others and the world... everything can change. Everything is meant to change. 

I was scared to allow myself to love again. Broken trust nearly killed my desire to have another companion. I didn't want to hurt again. I didn't want to lose someone else. Then I realized that I couldn't stop my heart from being touched by another. 

There have been times, especially at the beginning when I would fall back to my old way of thinking. I saw myself having expectations for a future. The more I allowed that to happen, the more anxious I became because I now had the knowledge that I really had no control over it. 

So I let go of expectations and I started seeing each day as a blessing. It left room in my mind and heart to love again and to truly experience every ounce of emotion that the relationship has brought to me. More profound, it has allowed me to see the person in front of me for who they really are, not who I want or hope for them to be.

 

Embracing the unknown has opened doors in every direction. Some, I walk through and decide to walk back out of. Some of those doors have led to beautiful experiences. And yes, some have led to hurt...but it's OK because the unknown means that there are still plenty of other doors for me to open and explore what's on the other side of them.

 

My life has become limitless. 

 

My love has become pure without the tainting of a plan. It exists in perfect harmony with the universe because I have given up control.

 

My fears have all but dissipated. I am no longer even afraid of death.

 

I am like a small child again. Full of wonder, laughing and joyful with each new day because it is a present waiting to be unwrapped. 

 

This is truly living...and I don't ever want to go back to wearing those blinders. I don't need to know the future..it's inconsequential. I need only to suck every drop of goodness from this moment.