In all honesty, I'm not really a New Year's Resolution making kinda girl. I definitely believe in making life changing decisions but I rarely restrict myself to one day a year...and I'm not a big fan of doing something when everyone else on the planet is doing it either. But, this year is different. I'm naming 2012 as the year of change, at least my personal year of change. For those of you who know me well, you probably think 2011 should hold that title but I've got bigger plans for 2012...assuming the Mayans weren't actually predicting the end of the world....as we know it. Hopefully since we've just entered the Age of Aquarius, the Mayans were predicting the downfall of corruption, corporate controlled economies and such which opens us up to enter an age of enlightenment, peace and a kinder, gentler world. If they were actually predicting Armageddon, well then my plans won't really matter in the long run anyway but I'm going to think positive and assume life won't end in slightly less than a year so I'm moving ahead with my resolution plans.
For a little background info, I googled New Year's Resolutions to see the origin of this tradition. Turns out it originated in Rome in 153 BC, developing from the worship of Janus (a mythical God with two faces). Janus was the God of beginnings, gates and doors. January was named after him and with two faces, he could look backward and forward at the same time, thus the tradition of beginning the month of January by looking back to review the previous year and forward in anticipation of the coming year began. Christianity would later take the tradition and claim it as it's own but actually a tremendous number of Christian traditions originated in Pagan rituals...a fact many Christians don't realize and those that do pretend it's fiction....but I digress. Nearly every country today has a slightly different tradition to ring in the new year and except for the U.S., most revolve around the whole household, usually involving a ritual that cleanses the house and its occupants of the negative events from the current year and a blessing for positive events in the coming year. The U.S. tradition doesn't focus on the house or its occupants. We seem to be more self-involved (a fact that should shock no one) and we usually concentrate strictly upon ourselves. We've even succeeded in taking a tradition originally steeped with deep meaning and turned it into a trivial game with little or no redeeming value. I don't know many people who put much thought into their resolution so there's a lot of vowing to losing weight, exercising more, having more patience with the kids, being more assertive at work, etc.. All valuable ideals and easy to repeat again next year when we fail to maintain this year's resolution into March...or February...or often even late January. Truthfully, we suck at these things yet we nobly try, try again.
So this year, I'm joining the resolution bandwagon in a big way. I've decided to ring in my year of change with not one resolution but several. I've been tucking ideas and ideals away for some time and now have too many resolutions to count. The only requirement to make the list was to be an idea that piqued my interest and to have teeth ... bite ... something I could sink my teeth into...a real challenge to change my life for the better. My choices of resolutions center around my inner self, digging a little deeper to make my world a better place and hopefully the world of those around me in the process. All that's left is to sort thru the list and narrow down my choices to a manageable yet challenging number. As Steve Jobs once said in his now famous speech to a group of college graduates, death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Sounds similar to the original purpose of the new year's resolution but on a make grander scale....and with harsher consequences. But since I have no plans to include death in my year of change (assuming the Mayans are on my side), I'll stick with a few life-altering resolutions instead.
So without further adieu...(insert drum roll here) ..........................................................................all will be revealed....in my next blog entry.
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