Reflections on New Year's Resolutions

So, it's 2009 and the list of New Year's resolutions have been written, rewritten, spell-checked and deleted yet again because somewhere deep in the limbic system of the brain, emotions and the case of status quo are wildly acting out that things will never change. Change is a hard thing for most of us. As we grow in an adult presence, we know what life and society expect us to do and how we are expected to behave through the various psycho-social, emotional stages of development, but oftentimes we veer to the left or right of the road that we are expected to take. Change can't be about society; it has to be about what we know must be done, not what we are expected to do in life by others. Inherently, we all know what heals and what magnifies the wound.

It feels odd that our lives are lived based on guilt and fear that people, known and unknown, dead and alive, won't like us or will judge us because of our individuality. Isn't it the individuality that creates the uniqueness of our existence and the diversity of our societal inclusion? Aren't we encouraged to be unique and follow the mapping of our hearts to what is real and good for us and to us and ultimately positive for the collective societal us? Yet when the time comes and it comes often, the double-standard becomes prominent on how we judge each other and each other's actions. We become stagnant in the want of change and fear the doors that we close on our own lives.

So why create a list of New Year's resolutions that you aren't interested or committed to keeping in the first place? There are reasons to create a list and reasons not to bother. I actually created a list of goals and actualizations for 2009 that I am already seeing manifest in my life. I won a $1 on a scratch it lottery ticket on the 1st day of the New Year and that is ominous towards the financial foundation that is number #10 on my list of resolutions. It must mean that for me, the list works and it's already in action manifesting my wants and wishes, or it means that I am opening doors and entering them on the journey with open heart and mind, or it means that my 1 in 758,000 chance of getting a dollar win on a lottery ticket was pure luck. Whatever the case, it is my belief in the meaning that furthers the actualization of the list.

Yet, for others, a list is meaningless if there is no faith or belief in one's own ability to change and grow. If a person wants to write and publish a book of poetry for 2009, yet never writes one poem because of the creative pressure to produce or fear that no one will like the poems, that might be a resolution with no wind in its wings. If someone is still being held hostage by the cruelty of what was done in the office of employment in 2008 and chooses to fight injustice and denigration with silent suffering and psychological burn-out, that might be a resolution that requires an intervention of another kind and not simply a place on the New Year's resolution list.

For 2009, I want to live life with verve and vitality as I have always done in previous years. I want to see the rock in my pathway as a collection of walkways through life. I want to spread the sunshine of happiness as a new light cast in the darkest places of human degradation and nurture the spirit of hope and peace of a planet evolving into its own consciousness and reckoning. I want to embrace reflection of principle and integrity as my legacy and gift to the planet and tender to those heart connections that I make along my life's journey.

I want to create an ambition of change and making a difference in my own life and in the lives of those I touch with the richness of a destiny and future so awe inspiring as the heaven of an "aurora borealis" of heart and soul. I want to mark my time on the planet with the accomplishments that are manifest in others because I was blessed to be a part of their lives and allowed to make meaningful and auspicious contributions to their growth and goals.

What I have learned in past years and continue to learn as I reflect on my New Year's list of resolutions is that the greatest gift of humanity is the gift of love. It is love that drives the spirit of contribution and partnership in the collaborative synergy of the Universe. It is love that will produce the change in the collective minds and hearts of a world unified in cause and purpose.

It is love that will create a 2009 of peace, change and resolutions that are reflective representations of the motivational step-stones of the human consciousness. I like my list as I step boldly into the newness of the open arms of a New Year with reflection, passion, solidity of principle and a progressive march towards a future legacy that will be about the giving and the gift of love.