New Year’s Resolutions.I don’t like them . . . not at all.
There was a short time in my life when I made them. Mainly because that’s what you do for the New Year, right? They were always hastily made and even more hastily forgotten.
But last year, at the end of 2007, I decided I needed to give it another try. It had been a really hard summer and fall for me and I figured I needed to give myself something to focus on . . . some sort of balance on which I could measure my worth.
I gave a lot of thought to my list of resolutions.
I started listing out all the things in my life that I needed to change. The more I listed, the smaller I began to feel.
But I kept listing.
And I began to dread the New Year.
The last day of the Old Year, I woke up with one thing on my mind: the word Intentional.
I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I thought about it as I got up to let the dog out. I thought about it as I poured myself a cup of coffee with cream – the real stuff, because I’m a purist when it comes to my coffee. I thought about it in the shower and I thought about it while I checked my e-mail. I went to the kitchen to prepare some munchies for a party our family was going to later that day – and I thought about it there, too.
Finally, I knew what to do with my word.
I would make IT my New Year’s Resolution.
Why not?
I picked up the list I had compiled during the last few weeks. I studied it and saw the evidence of all the wrestling that had gone on in my mind . . . all the things I should work on were underlined, scratched out, rewritten, circled and prioritized.
I realized why I don’t like to make New Year’s Resolutions. They point out all the negative stuff in your life; all your short-comings.
So I decided to throw out my long list of “should do’s” and focus on my one word; on being intentional.
Being intentional has meant that I’ve had to take a good look inside . . . and outside. It has meant that I’ve had to be more honest with myself when it comes to making choices. I’ve had to learn how to say “no” to things that, a year ago, I would have said “yes” to. I’ve had to really think about what’s important to me.
I have to admit that my word hasn’t been at the forefront of each of my days this year. But it’s now the end of November and I actually remember what my resolution was. I can honestly say that there have been more days that I have worked on being intentional than days that I didn’t.
I’m not ending the year a different size, a vegetarian, or a tri-athlete. I think the change I’m aware of is not so much a change as it is a shift . . .
And I like the shift I see.
I like it so much that my New Year’s Resolution for 2009 will be two words.
More Intentional.
Photo: Mother watching her children participating in VBS inside her village church, Colote'el, Chiapas, Mexico, 2006.
