We are Resolved

[lydamorehouse]

 It's probably foolish to attempt to post something mundane, but I would like to give it a try.

I know that we are well into 2021 at this point, but I would like to recap my New Year's. If you've been following me for some time, you may know that we have a private family tradition in which we put out a small satchel of dimes (to represent "silver") on our front stoop some time before midnight and then ritually bring them in on the morning of the first day of the year. It's a simple representational spell to try coax money IN the door in the upcoming year (and it harm none, of course.) This year, because Mason is headed off to college, we had him do all the money handling. 

Likewise, one of the questions I often have at the beginning of each new year is "Do you make a resolution, and, if so, what is it?" I go back and forth about new year resolutions. Out of curiosity, I went back and looked through my hashtag "new years resolution" and I seem to be pretty to consistent in that I at least talk about a resolution every year--although my level of commitment does seem to waver a lot. 

In case you are curious, I will do a sampling retrospective for you:

• 2020: "I should probably journal on DW more?" (The half-a$$ed resolution that I actually kept.)
• 2019: "I will do a spell every day from my Spell-a-Day book!" (The sincere resolution that ended in a broken bathtub that we still haven't fixed!)
• 2018: A joke about maybe trying to "be nicer" (jury is still out.)
• 2017: Try to read at least 30 books in a year (I think I managed it that year, actually.)
• 2016: "I've decided this year that when I'm angry at some yahoo on social media, I'm going to insult them exclusively from lyrics in the Grinch song." (FAIL. I don't think I remembered pledging this five minutes after I did.)

This year, I feel sort of unwilling to commit to much beyond "continue to try to survive the pandemic," but I am signed up for a Japanese language class that starts next week. I am hoping to make a dent in my understanding of Japanese these year, but it's probably safer, given my track record, not to make that an official resolution.

So, how about you?

Comments

[pameladean]

It's been a long time since I did New Year's resolutions, partly because making something a resolution really does seem to jinx its chances in some way; but mostly because it's such a horrible rotten time of the year for making a new start. New starts are for the spring. I usually make a list of hopes, which is about as far as I will go, somewhere around March 25th, when change seems reasonable. January? In Minnesota? Give me a break. January is for hunkering down.

It's been so very long since I did anything like a resolution that most of the ones I can remember have to do with weight loss. YUCK, AVERT.

There are writing-related ones, too, mostly having to do with improbable discipline and procedures that certainly work for somebody but are pretty much guaranteed not to work for me: the more appealing a writing scheme is to me, the less likely it is to be remotely possible for me to carry it through. Such perversity.

Occasionally in January, though I think not this January, I very stealthily vow to "get back" to some habits that I managed to establish for a while. The one I most often vow to get back to and actually do is the very loose writing one of "four hours or four pages, whichever comes first." There are long periods of time during any project where that doesn't work, and others where it's not necessary to worry about it at all. But for any long slog, which is what I'm embarked upon at the moment, it's mildly useful.

Your list was great. I think I recognize many of those moods.

P.

[offcntr]

I really try to avoid the whole New Years Resolutions thing, but this year our Book Group is big into setting goals for 2021, so put on the spot, I said "I'm gonna try to be less productive!" I'm actually kinda serious: having all my shows cancelled in 2020 gave me time to slow down a little and try some different things, like the quilt squares that are still waiting to be assembled. (Though I at least bought more thread.)

I probably still won't have any real shows this year, but I took a step towards lightening my load last week, when I told the Ceramic Showcase Steering Committee that I wouldn't be continuing in my Poster/Graphics chair job, and in fact wouldn't be participating, either live or online, in the show anymore.

So that's one less thing to worry about in March and April. They also said some very complimentary things about my participation over the years, so that was nice too.

[transcendancing]

I am so late to commenting on this but I am trying to reassert the importance of DW in my life so I'm doing so even though it's really late!

I don't tend to do resolutions - as an anxious, over-thinking, hypervigilent, perfectionist it's a recipe for disaster for me.

But! I like to do a thing, I like it when there are conveniently placed sign posts that allow me to to focus on an activity that is about growth or showing people I care, or whatever happens to be going on (Xmas - a chance to enjoy togetherness, feasting, presents if we're in the mood - but it's not that we don't do it otherwise, just that conveniently here's a thing already prepped to facilitate, why reinvent the wheel and instead pick and choose what works and side eye the capitalism involved judiciously, Valentines Day - a chance to make a fuss of a partner or several, not because I don't normally, just because it's a convenient sign post to signal that appreciation, love, value and care, NYE is the same deal as I'll explain below).

Instead of resolutions or even hard and fast goals I have a 'theme'. It's almost always one word and I think of it as a subconscious back-of-mind process that ticks away passively over the year. I do some points of reflection, but they're not specifically timed, when I remember to do it is usually the right time. The less I think about it in the front of my brain the better it tends to go and the more I learn from it at the end of that reflection period - the year. Generally I'll set out what I think said yearly theme might offer me, what I'd like out of it, what speaks to me about it. Sometimes I've posted an interim reflection or two and talked about how things are going and whether my sense of things has changed. At the end of the year I reflect on comparing what I thought the enquiry would be about, vs what actually happened and what I learned and valued. I always get something important out of it, it's never failed me and I get to let myself have this thing that allows me to grow as a person ongoingly, but in a way that is better suited to my particulars of mental health needs. I'm about to post in the coming days (?? we'll see) about last year in 2020 vs this year 2021.

I love doing this as it allows me as much or as little scope to have goals and lists as works for me in a given year, and it's a very less is more approach - the more I try to hack at it and mould things toward a specific outcome, the more likely it is that something completely left field will be part of the learning, the more I let it run in the background, the more curious I am in what is going on around me, where I'm at and what I'm thinking and feeling. Same as deciding on what the theme is - I tend to know it when the word appears or I hear it or read it or something, and I can't force it, I have to be patient. I've also turned several people onto this process with results that similarly please them.

Anyway, hopefully this is interesting to read, I love hearing about the different ways people undertake some kind of resolution or reflection/goal process.