Rewriting Resolutions
|
|
Last year at this time, I was making Wednesday Resolutions for the New Year which might last until Thursday. This year I decided to research the polls of national resolutions and suggest a rewriting that would fit the needs of 21st century America. After I work out each morning at the YMCA, I sit and rest before going home. Across from me on the wall is the YMCA newsletter for January with this headline: National Resolutions. These are the top five for most people: 1) losing weight, 2) exercising more often, 3) breaking a bad habit, 4) getting out of debt and 5) making more money. With over 65 % of America overweight, the first two are important to our national health. I do not know about you but I have not seen any overweight terrorist on television. Pounds are weapons of mass destruction. So I wish to rewrite my first resolution to read like this: 1) May my inner image of myself transform the actual picture in the mirror. Six years ago I was determined to lose weight (have lost 75 pounds-life styles of eating do not happen overnight) and exercise more often (in 1998, I had a quintuple heart by-pass and I knew that overweight and lack of exercise had almost killed me), As an artist, I took off all my clothes and drew what I saw in that mirror. I have done this for my own use every six month. It is not Michelangelo’s David that I see there but the shape has moved from rounded to a more athletic, cubist form. When I look at the resolution of “breaking a bad habit”, I remember one of my rules for living: 2) Make no mistakes but have learning experiences. Of course, if you keep making the same “mistakes”, they are not learning experiences. Be your own tough boss and fire yourself as a trainer if you cannot learn from the disasters that we all create in our lives. A simple statement to someone who loves you can turn a “bad habit” into “gold”. The statement is: “I need help.” The resolution of getting out of debt is worthwhile but unless someone learns that 3) I will see money as a tool to use to get from one location to another that resolution is meaningless. Money is like the wheels on an automobile. It help you drive from one place to another: from poverty to the middle class, from the middle class to an upper plateau. Picasso, on his eightieth birthday said about money, “I want enough so that I can live like a poor man.” Besides family and those we love, most of us do not need to be Donald Trump. The importance of family and love were paramount after 9/11. Has fear and war made us forget so soon? Getting out of debt is good but without a look at how one gets there, it is a continuing process. Making more money will only create more resolutions the following year. Instead of saying that, the resolution should be: 4) I will use my wisdom and education for meaningful control and enjoyment. If you do not have education or wisdom, then the resolution should be to gain those needed tools. Education is the motor in the vehicle that propels lives to happiness. My father who went to the 10th grade before he had to find a job to make a living in the Depression told me. “I have not been to college so you are on your own but when you get there learn to meet people and situations and everything else will fall into place.” He was right. As my last resolution to pass on, let me borrow from two great individuals: Martha Graham, an American icon in dance, and Rumi, a 13th century Islamic poet. They believed and said: 5) I am only in competition with that person I know I can become and May the beauty we love be what we do. If someone wants to make resolutions, it is an all-year job, not just when the clock chimes twelve at the end of an arbitrary 365 days. If you wish to stay young inside, then the competition with self is important and without love (and a sense of humor) all the resolutions in the world will not make a difference. |
|
Website created by Skillcraft Custom Design |