Resolution

Once again it’s that time of year, the time when we gaze hopefully toward the future and a new start, and reminisce on the triumphs, joys, failures, and sorrows of the past. It’s the end of one year and the start of a new. With the changing of calendars on the wall, and the guilt of eating too many holiday cookies comes the inevitable quandary of what should we resolve to do differently this upcoming year?

A resolution is an expression of intention, an act of resolving or determining upon an action or course of action. But it’s also the mental state or quality of being resolute, having a firmness of purpose; in court it’s a judicial decision, a verdict. The medical field views resolution as a return from a pathological to a normal condition, the subsidence of the symptoms of a disease. Musicians even see it as the process in harmony whereby a dissonant note or chord is followed by a consonant one. Even your TV has a resolution!

What we’re talking about however is the promise we all tend to make tomorrow, big or small. The norm for most New Year’s resolutions usually deal with plans to spend more time with friends or family, quitting smoking or drinking, and getting into better shape. Others promise to find happiness or add to the quality of life, taming debt, or taking up a new hobby. And there are always those altruistic hopes too of giving back and helping others or getting life organized and onto a new path.

These seemingly ridiculous commitments started thousands of years ago in Babylon as Babylonians resolved to give something borrowed, back to their neighbors. Two thousand years later the Romans gave gifts to loved ones and asked for forgiveness from their enemies, starting the New Year with some sort of “clean slate.” The Romans believed in new starts so vehemently they even changed the date of the New Year to coincide with the first month of our current calendar, January, being named after Janus, the two-faced Roman god of beginnings and transitions. All over the globe and throughout a variety of cultures the passing from one year to the next has always been an occasion for celebration and making promises that the next year will be better than the previous.

Most people resolve to give something up, to drop some seemingly bad habit or flaw. Some religious dogma over the years possibly has lead some to believe we would be better off if we gave up these vices or wanton urges in our life, focusing on our transgressions from the past year and fixing them. I say we look forward instead and believe our resolutions should be about gaining something, rather than sacrifice. Last year was the first time I decided to be resolute in my resolution and other than a few lapses, firmly stuck to what I decided to change in 2011. However my intention was to cut things out of my life, seemingly unimportant things too. I was able to eliminate, begrudgingly of course, two things I knew would be hard to give up, but in the end giving these things up did not make me a better person or a happier one. They were healthy exclusions, but for 2012 I plan on including something, something that will make me that better person and a happier one.

So this year I have my goals, the things I want to accomplish; I’m going to find a great job, I’m going to eat healthy, I am going to stay fit and run another marathon and a 50 mile ultra. I’m going to finally defend my thesis, and close that chapter in my life, and possibly even reapply to start my PhD. I’m going to stay positive and enjoy my life in 2012, I’m going to find that happiness that I feel I slightly lost in 2011, but those are some of my goals, my resolution is a core thing I am going to change. January first my resolution starts, and this year I am resolving to go big, I plan on finding compassion in my life for the people around me. I resolve to listen better and care more about the important things in life, those in it, and show the ones I love that I do in fact love them. By this time next year I hope to have nurtured the relationships in my life to the point that I don’t feel alone anymore, to the point where I am truly happy because I have stopped pushing people away and instead opened my arms and heart to others. I know it sounds lofty, or fanciful, but I think it’s attainable and I believe it will change my life and the lives of those around me.

Well Happy New Year and good luck with whatever you decided to do or not do or change in your life for 2012! If you’d like, share your resolutions here with me and our one other reader… Haha! Feel free to post, I hope to hear from you!!