Today is a new year, but more importantly, it’s a new day.
The sun is shining. I have a nice new fuzzy red blanket that looks a lot like
Santa’s cape covering my lap, and I’m sipping coffee from a mug that says “Meow”
that my daughter made me. Never mind that she wrote “Crazy Cat Lady Club” on
the bottom.
So much emphasis is put on a new year. My email was
bombarded with “New Year, New You” messages about everything from teeth
whitening services to something called lipotropic weight loss shots, to microdermabrasion
- which I actually considered for a second before I realized there is nothing wrong
with my skin, and I really don’t even know what that is – along with constant
messages from a boot camp telling me my backside will get three sizes bigger if
I don’t show up for its trial session this Saturday. It’s so overwhelming that
it makes me want to break my get-out-of-bed-before-nine resolution and crawl
back under the covers.
I can’t say in the past that I would have signed up for all
of the above, but I would have differently felt guilty for NOT signing up. I
have tried every approach to resolutions from making them, to not making them,
to changing the time of year I made them. Yes, I made 4th of July
resolutions for several years. You can read about them here. And here.
Nothing worked. I tried narrowing my focus, for example, to work
out every day, instead of the vague “get into shape.” I tried making my
resolutions more realistic; for example, work out three days a week versus
every day. That helped, but it never stuck. Go to the gym in February, if you
don’t believe me. You’re more than likely to see the same people who were there
in Dec., with the January influx having already tapered off.
This New Year, however, things are different. I am
different. I no longer expect that when the ball drops, I’m magically going to
become this new person who loves working out at 6 a.m., never leaves trash in
her car, and can’t wait to get home from working all day to cook a healthy yet
delicious meal and then help her kids with their science fair projects. But, I
am the kind of person now who if I can do one of those things in a day, heck, in
a week, I will be satisfied.
And, I think that is key. Accepting oneself and one’s
shortcomings, but being open and willing to improving, not by some magic that
comes from turning of the calendar and toasting of the new year, but by hard
work that requires constant effort day by day. I think self-improvement comes
from waking up each day and saying, “What can I do to help other people? How
can I be kind to others?” and, most of the time, that includes being kind to
myself.
Wishing you and yours the very best every day of the new
year.
