My Two New Year’s Tweaks
I love New Year’s resolutions. They have this way of making you feel like anything is possible.
Part of it is the wholly arbitrary and yet incredibly powerful event of the start of a new year itself. Even though we could conceivably start a new year on any day (February 1…or 28th, for that matter), once you choose to count from a certain place, it gives the impression of a new start. January 1st, of course, flows with absolutely no disconnect from December 31, but that’s beside the point. What matters is that we’ve decided to count 1/1 not simply as a continuation of 12/31 but as something new.
The other delicious part of New Year’s resolutions is the resolution part. I mean, it sounds so wonderful, so grand, so purposeful, so, well, resolved. And the real beauty of resolutions, of course, is that they are about the future – about what we will do in a new and untainted 2014. And so making resolutions feels delightful and costs nothing.
It’s keeping them that’s a drag. 🙂
Which is why, of course, that of the manifold resolutions I’ve made over the years I’ve only kept a very few. Nor am I alone. Experts estimate that while two-third of folks in the U.S. make resolutions, less than 10% keep them. Moreover, most of those resolutions have faded away before January has come to a close.
I have a hunch that what makes a New Year’s resolution so delightful is also what makes them so fragile. Overly optimistic about the potential of the new year to be substantially different than the last year (or maybe it’s the hope that we will be substantially different in the new year), we aim too high. And buoyed by not having actually to do anything in the moment, we are unrealistic about what it will take to keep the resolution we are contemplating.
For this reason, I’ve decided to make New Year’s “tweaks” rather than resolutions, hoping just to tilt the balance of what I do rather than imagine I can start over. So here are my two tweaks for 2014.
1) Make more intentional choices.
I realized a short time ago that I spend a lot of my life feeling like I never have enough time. That I’m always on the run…and need to be. That’s there’s always more to do. That, in short, there are just too many things that I want and have to do than I could possible accomplish in one lifetime.
On the one hand, that all may be true. On the other hand, however, my perception of all of this as a lack of time instead of an abundance of choices can be debilitating. I have the same 24 hours a day and 168 hours a week that you do. More to the point, it’s the same amount of time per day and week that I had when I was 10 and when I was 20 and even when I was 40. Yet somehow, each year feels more time-pinched.
So while I’m tempted to resolve that this year I will get more organized (hyper-organized, if I’m going to get everything done), I’m instead going to tweak how I act and practice thinking more intentionally about the choices I make. In fact, just admitting that most of what I do is a choice will be a start. One of the pernicious illusions that I sometimes fall captive to is that I have no choice, when indeed I am fortunate that much of how I spend my time isn’t dictated by necessity but by choice. Each choice has consequences, of course, but that’s different than not having choices at all.
Allow two examples: 1) Is this speaking engagement the way I want to spend that weekend? It fits in my calendar like one more piece in a jigsaw puzzle, but should I leave more blank pieces to create (or really reclaim) more unscheduled time? To choose to accept an invitation is to enjoy the interaction with other folks and to be paid to do something I greatly enjoy. But to choose to turn it down is to have more time at home, more time to catch up with my family and, for that matter, myself. 2) Do I want to stay up late watching this television program, or do I want to go to bed a little earlier, rest more, and have a bit more energy tomorrow? To choose the first is to relax with a program I hope to enjoy; to choose the second is to relax in a different way, and perhaps get more sleep.
And that’s the thing about these examples: they both involve choices that a) have no right answer and b) will impact how I experience time. So rather than assume I can do everything – which really just amounts to living the illusion that I don’t have to make choices – and then complain when it doesn’t work out, this year I hope to tweak my practices by, first, recognizing that my reality involves a lot of choices, not just demands, and, second, to make those choices with greater thought and intentionality.
2) Learn to love (or at least like) imperfection.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a perfectionist in the sense that my office – or even desk – is always neat; it’s not. Nor do I write and re-write things making sure they are as perfect as they can be. I’ve learned to live with a certain amount of messiness and to write quickly and produce more even when it means settling for less than perfect work.
Where I struggle is with expectations I set for myself. They aren’t grand or noble, they’re just expectations I picked up somewhere along the way about how things – Christmas, family life, myself – should be, and when they’re not it’s easy to be disappointed…and usually with myself.
This blog is a great example. I love writing it. But somewhere along the way I decided that I should write two posts, six days a week (one devotional, one not). Why? Who the heck knows. I think I liked the sense of balance and symmetry. Which is fine, except when I can’t seem to pull it off, or put off other things to do it, or feel crappy about a hurried post or, heaven forbid, not posting enough. (At this point I should probably tell you that you don’t need to tell me it’s okay; I know this isn’t about you, it’s about me. :))
But here’s the thing. While these kinds of expectations sometimes – emphasis on sometimes – drive me to greater productivity, they also often – emphasis on often – take something I once enjoyed and threaten to turn it into a chore. This only happens, of course, when I allow an admittedly ambitious goal – posting 12 times a week, for instance – to become a ridiculous expectation.
And so rather than resolve that I can live without goals (just not possible for me) or only set absolutely achievable goals (again, that’s just not me), or – once again, heaven forbid – imagine I can keep all these expectations, I will tweak my attitudes and practices so that this year I continue set high goals and dream big dreams, but also learn not just to settle with, but actually and gratefully accept, both the fruit such goals produce as well as the imperfections that will inevitably accompany them.
So there you have it: two New Year’s Tweaks. I’ll let you know how they go. In the meantime, what goals, resolutions, or tweaks are you contemplating for the new year?
David. Thank you for the personal words which connect to what many of us in your broader community do feel. I might also add that there is that “place” called “enough.” And sometimes we get there. I will say that ” . . . in the meantime” as it is “right now” is a source of daily abundance for me. Thank you!
Remember this simple prayer: “God save me from my self inflicted goals, tasks, and deadlines.”
For Epiphany this year, my congregation did this activity called “Start gifts” that I stole from a friend. (Read about it here: http://www.reformedworship.org/article/september-2009/star-gifts)
The basic idea is that everyone receives a gift to focus on throughout the year, and next year on Epiphany I will invite some folks to share their reflections about how they saw God made manifest in their star gift. The gift I drew, very appropriately, was TIME. So I, too, have been carefully considering how I spend my time, and trying to understand it not as my time but as God’s time, gifted (loaned?) to me. Some of your reflections above are similar to my thoughts on this so far. One of my “tweaks” is trying to go to bed earlier (my husband and I tend to crash on the couch and stay there too long because we’re too tired to get up and move to the bed – so silly), and in turn wake up earlier, so that I can start my day with a walk, or devotional reading, rather than rushing, rushing out the door. Caring for my body and spirit in this way is likely more pleasing to God than say, playing Candy Crush Saga late into the night because I’m too darn tired to get off the couch – and it might just change my outlook on the rest of my day.
(This tweak is proving more difficult than I expected – I’ve yet to be successful, but at least I have been more intentional. I’ll keep trying!)