New Year 2024

 Resolved: firmly determined to do something. 

Here they come–resolutions to be better, start fresh, wipe the slate clean. Who doesn’t want to lose a few pounds…eat healthier…finish writing that book (I say this as I’ve turned into a total couch sloth this week and I’m determined to finish the remains of the cookies and candies my family left behind when they left after Christmas) 

 I get it. As a former teacher, I’m goal oriented. In fact, in the later years of my profession, administrators expected us to post daily leaning goals for students and evaluated us on this. I usually engage in the New Year’s practice of setting personal resolutions, and goals for my writing life as well.  But before I dove in this year,  a dear friend posted a quote from Donna Ashworth that caused me to pause and rethink. It reads in part:

“I don’t see the need for you to resolve to become a whole new you, when you are already so very much indeed.”

This prompted me to look to a favorite resource where I found this from Jon Kabat-Zinn:

“Maybe the fear is that we are less than we think we are, when the actuality of it is that we are much much more.

Now I’m confused. Should I refrain from making resolutions or goals this year joining many who say “My New Year’s Resolution is to make no resolutions.” I sat with these words swirling around in my brain for several days, and I think I figured it out. For me.

What if I see the new year not as an end of my old self, or a beginning of my new self, but a continuation? Can I look back at all I have experienced, the people who have loved and influenced me, the wisdom I’ve gained, the person I’ve become to get me here, to this day in January 2024, and build on that? Can continue to grow and learn, and embrace this new year, wherever it takes me, knowing that right now, I’m enough–much more than I even realize? Yes! I’m resolved.

Hello 2024, it’s me Deb. Let’s do this!