New Year resolutions
Memo to me:Volume I:2: 01/01/2021
The New Year dawns: all across the world everyone is praying that the year just beginning will be better than the year just gone by. And what a year it has been! all our assumptions about our planet in general, and our individual lives in particular, have been upended. Whatever certainty we once had about life, has been blown to bits. With any luck — the vaccine is just around the corner — we can dare to be optimistic, and hope to once again embrace our loved ones and hug them to our heart. And indeed, the year 2020 stood true to the significance of its number: it gave us better vision and clarity of thought. We now have some inkling of what we are actually worth and how little we matter in the general scheme of things.
Another important question also rises. The year gone by must have been, for most of us, a year of introspection; especially folks like me, senior citizens, retired and introverted. With time hanging heavily, and the distractions of a physical world denied to us, and exhausted too by a strange new virtual reality seen on a screen, we had the occasion and the opportunity to look deep into ourselves. The real question that should now engage us is how can we be better persons today, than what we were yesterday? If what we should aim for is to become continuously evolving persons, who are, each day, better than what we were the day before, then we cannot but ask ourselves that question.
The prayer of St Francis makes this fervent plea for self-improvement:it is an appeal and a universal prayer.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
How beautiful the words and the feelings they arouse. Even though they are essentially a Christian prayer, they have a sweep and magnificence that is moving and universal. Yet, to me it appears that these pleas are too sublime, too aspirational; how many of us can really adhere to these exhortations? Can you spread light when your mind is dark and foreboding? Is it really possible to console others when your own grief is inconsolable. Can we sow faith when we ourselves are in doubt. Can we as ordinary people, rid ourselves of our foibles and ills to the extent that we can sow love in others, or create hope, or spread joy and light and possess perfect faith?
The interesting fact is that when one is contented and at peace within, there is a better chance that the prayer of St. Francis actually starts to mean much more. If I myself am centred within, and seek to find a better me, then there is a better chance that I will work towards the objectives of the prayer. If one is good and healthy, if one has food in one’s stomach and the things that give one happiness are all around, then one has a better chance to find meaning in the prayers of St. Francis. Curious, isn’t it? Find happiness and peace within, and then spread that joy to others.
And so, at the dawn of the New Year, I keep my hopes at a more realistic level and ask myself the same question, but with these words: How can I be better. Better not for the world, not for others, but for me: How do I become a better me, how do I live life in a better manner; how do I become a better person.
I would guess that the things that make me happy are the things I should encourage: I should nurture them in a manner that they grow and expand within me.
So these are the things I enjoy and shall practice more assiduously henceforth.
·…start the day with a brisk walk, clear the fog of the night from my head, feel the blood coursing through my veins as I pound the ground under my feet and work up a sweat…
·…listen to music, pleasant and soothing, on the stereo at home, or inside my head through my new headphones…
·…write blogs and other literary articles and put them upon the net…
·…enjoy my meals and take delight in the pleasant feeling thereafter…
·…see movies on streaming channels on the desk top…
·…chat and laugh with my wife and the family and take pleasure in that simple joy…
·…feel the delight and satisfaction of contributing your little mite to a good cause…
·…travel and see new places and people…
·…feel the overall glow of wellness when the body is ticking along fine…
And so in the converse, I shall keep myself far from the things that cause me distress; or hides me from my own true self, such as:
·…I will not do anything I do not wish to do, even when asked to do it…
·…I will avoid loud and toxic persons: their poison makes me miserable…
·…I will not tolerate fools and show-offs…
·…I will not be swept away by the crass rhetoric of others…
·…I will not offer free advice to anyone…
·…I will not go to bed with my mind in turmoil for whatever reasons…
·…I will not talk in company in a manner that demonstrates how much I know…
·…I will not hesitate to cry when sorrow sweeps over me…
·…I vow not to complain about the aches and pains of a body growing old…
·…I will not be blind to the beauty of the earth and the sky…
·…I shall not hold my hand back, when I wish to give…
That should do it: these then are my resolutions for the New Year.
I pray I remain true to myself and to this list of to-do’s and to-not-do’s.