On a new year

I know I'm a few days late, but welcome to 2012!  The start of a new year always makes me a bit giddy.  I get excited about hanging up a new calendar, seeing all the days yet to come, all the opportunity that lies ahead.  There's no reason not to feel this way at any other time during the year, but starting at the beginning of something just makes it all feel a bit more real. 

I haven't really made New Year's resolutions for a few years now.  Not because there isn't anything I aspire to change about myself, but because every year and during all the months throughout the year I am always trying to improve upon myself in some way.  But the start of a new year is also a good time to remind myself of those ongoing resolutions.....all those ideals I strive to incorporate.

Overall I am still trying to be a more forgiving person.  To be a more honest person.  And to be a less judgmental person.  I strive everyday to be the type of person that sees the good and the beauty in others, and to also identify those qualities in myself.  Sometimes I get too caught up in the little details that don't matter, and I lose sight of the big picture.  I hope in the year to come I can keep focus on the big picture and not worry about the little things that aren't going to matter a year or even a month from now.   

If I can accomplish all these things I'll be practically perfect, huh? 

It's kind of a running joke that most people abandon their New Year's resolutions by the end of January, some people even sooner than that.  This mostly applies to resolutions involving exercise, but I'm sure there are others that fall into that realm as well.  It's so easy, so refreshing to start the year off with a new outlook and a new routine.  Maybe that's part of the shine that January 1st evokes.  But it doesn't take long for that shine to wear off, does it?  It's a hard, hard thing to dedicate yourself to something for 365 straight days.

When our goals, our resolutions, are new it's exciting and challenging to think about tackling these new endeavors we set for ourselves.  But when certain things don't come to us as easy as we think they should, or when too much time goes by and we still aren't as far along as we want to be, sometimes we choose to take the easy way out and just....give up.  Then as more time goes by and another new year approaches we see another chance.  Another opportunity to try again. 

I'm not trying to be a downer.  I'm not trying to say that resolutions made at the beginning of a new year are a waste of time, or that they can't be accomplished.  I guess I'm just hoping that by addressing the new year's resolution phenomenon I myself can somehow avoid it. 

Ultimately it's up to us.  Whether or not we make our resolutions stick.  Sometimes I think that's where the letdown comes.  We say these things, these things about ourselves we want to change or improve, but then we don't take the actions, or enough actions, to make them happen.  

Determination.  Dedication.  Maybe I'll try to work on these qualities as well.