The Cure for Anything

I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. I don’t know how the idea started, but it seems like a good way to set yourself up for failure. I don’t think anyone needs more of that. Besides, every day is a new beginning, a opportunity for a fresh start, not just January 1. There’s nothing magical about that date.

Instead, I’ve actively chosen to be grateful for who I am and what I have right now.  That doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t like some things in my life to be different– I do.  I’m actively taking steps to make those things happen,  each and every day.  Tiny, baby steps.  It is amazing to me how challenging it can be to let go of things, even when those things are the root of our suffering.  I’ve gotten so much better at that over the years, but it is an on-going process.

“The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.” ~ This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

 

I like this so much more than a list of resolutions.  It’s positive and achievable.  I can’t agree more with the idea of guarding your time.  Cutting out unnecessary things in my life has allowed me so much more time for the things that are important to me.