New Year's Hopes, NOT Resolutions

I think there may be some people who share my opinion on this: New Year's Resolutions are a waste of time. Even though the root word itself ("resolute") sounds so...well, resolute, or determined, or strong, most people I know only stick with their resolutions for a few weeks, if even a few days. This is not always because they no longer want to reach their goal, but because sometimes that "resolute" feeling doesn't stay strong and fades into the dusty cockles of the mind, not to be remembered again until New Year's Eve next year. So, even if you pick a firm-sounding word, you still have to actually act out your resolution, not just be resolute about declaring a personal goal on January 1st. It's not that I don't believe that resolutions can be accomplished; it's just that I know myself and quite a few other types of people, and from what I can tell, it's just not worth the guilt in the long run just to have something to get excited about declaring you're going to do when we "usher in the new year."

I have known for a while now that I detest New Year's Resolutions, but it hasn't been until this year that I've figured out what I prefer instead. I do think that the new year is a good time to take stock of my life and figure out what I think is going well so I can continue to nurture that, while finding and rooting out the problems so next year will be better. With that in mind, I have decided to start my own tradition of New Year's Hopes rather than resolutions. Hope, to me, is so much stronger and more dependable than resolutions. Resolutions take physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual energy to complete, while hope is just mental and emotional; the parts of being a human that I find easiest to connect with. Plus, it seems that hope is the only thing that keeps people going when times are rough.

Elie Wiesel managed to make it through 3 concentration camps at the age of 16 because he had the strong hope that he would be able to keep himself and his father together and alive throughout the entire Holocaust. He succeeded, too, and managed to keep he and his father from harm until a week before the camp was liberated, when his father's malnourished body could no longer survive and he perished from dysentery. Elie's hope then became to survive and create a new family apart from the tragedy he had witnessed. If he can still be hopeful after coming through the Holocaust, that seals it for me: hope is a pretty darn powerful thing. Hope lives in your mind, something no one has access to unless you allow them in, and for me, this will be how I try to view the new year: with hope.

My hopes for the Year of the Tiger are:

1)to laugh regularly.

2)to make new friendships and rekindle old ones.

3)to continue writing and enjoying the euphoria that comes with putting the right combination of words together that releases a pent up inner thought in my mind like a child letting a helium balloon float through his fingers into the clear blue sky.

4)to find a way to regularly paint and draw again.

5)to find a balance between self, work, personal, emotions, mood, etc.

I know they sound like resolutions, but as hopes, I avoid the guilt. I cannot fail unless I fail to hope that any or all of these things might be realized for me this year. It is easier to fail to do rather than to fail to hope. I know I can keep myself focused on these hopes, as they are responsible for reigniting my passion for life itself lately. Not bad, hope; keep it up. Mental workouts have always been more of my thing, anyway. :)