For 2011 I Resolve…to Be Cool with Not Resolving

‘Tis the season, yes? It’s barreling toward us…another start of another year when we look back and take stock of what we accomplished in the last 12 months.  Another lost chance to be toned and well-honed, loved, rich, enlightened, famous, respected, vice-free (so un-fun!) and any myriad other gag-inducing goals.  OK fyne! Being rich is a noble goal. 😛

I actually stopped setting down “resolutions” many years ago.  They don’t fit with my personality. And I’m learning to put up with my personality. Contrary to so much common “wisdom” out there about goal-setting and planning, I’m coming to terms with my drifter-ness.  Not keeping a tight reign on my life has taken me in some very cool directions.  Others, not so much.  I guess I could resolve to learn to love and forgive myself more each year.  Embrace my inner flake!  Had I done that at the eve of 2010, I would now be able to reflect back and concede that yes, indeed, I did learn to be more forgiving of my so-called shortcomings and quirks.  I would have shown resolve. 😉 This was a hard-won achievement.  This was a year of painful loss for me, as well as financial and relationship-al challenges (OK, crises!). They say adversity is a powerful teacher. Well, perhaps I shall attain enlightenment, grasshopper.

“So go ahead. Fall down. The world looks different from the ground.” Oprah Winfrey

A welcome side effect of this new self-acceptance stuff, is an expanded compassion and patience I have gained for others. It’s pretty cool. We really are all fighting a battle (Plato). Man, that guy was smart.   Though I prefer to think of life not as a battleground but as a training ground. A place where we UNlearn fears, hang-ups, anxieties, judgments, and all sorts of non-serving perspectives so that hopefully, by the time our human experience comes to an end, we smack our foreheads in the realization that we knew these truths when we were born. Sheesh!

“Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.” Oprah Winfrey

In the spirit of NOT locking down on resolutions or goals, I’d like to share this parable from Richard Bach’s “Illusions”. I read it as a teen, and it resonated with me then.  But only now, 30 years later, does it curl the corners of my mouth in a certain knowing.  Here’s to bouncing along and getting bruised in life but trusting that it really is all good, and the flow will take you to great, wondrous places!

Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. The current of the river swept silently over them all–young and old, rich and poor, good and evil, the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self.

Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth. But one creature said at last, “I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom.”

The other creatures laughed and said, “Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks and you will die quicker than boredom!” But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.

Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more. And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, “See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, come to save us all!”

And the one carried in the current said, “I am no more Messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure.” But they cried the more, “Savior!” all the while clinging to the rocks, and when they looked again he was gone, and they were left alone making legends of a Savior. Richard Bach, ‘Illusions’

Above video is one of my long-time favorite songs by Frou Frou – Let Go. Video Credit: NekoAutumn

Looking forward to getting out of the turbulence and floating. No more clinging!  Thank you for tolerating my ramblings. As ever, I welcome and encourage your comments.  I learn so very much from you.  Float on, my lovelies. Best to you and yours in 2011!!

Photos by G. Stark, unless I’m in them!