New Year’s Resolutions?
I hate new year’s resolutions. The new year is just an arbitrary date created by a linear calendar that happens to start in the dead of winter. And resolutions are usually just lists of things we think we “should” do but haven’t been able to. So a month, or even a few weeks, in you feel like a failure because you’ve not been able to do it now either.
Instead of a new year, I like to focus on the fact that we get a brand new twenty-four hours each day and can start having the life we want any time. It’s about letting ourselves use the gift of time in the most deeply meaningful, connected way. It pays off immediately in feeling good and fulfilled, and often it sets us up to be more productive and balanced in a way we can never do with a list of to-do’s or resolutions.
So instead of having a new year’s resolution to “write more,” I can take twenty minutes today and actually write. And when I have written, I feel fulfilled. Then I can turn to the rest of my life with the sense of ease, having already done the thing that was most important to me. Or, if I postpone that twenty minutes and another 12 hours goes by, I get to just start again.
This is what it means to me to be a timeshifter. Not getting caught in linear time’s limits and rigidity, but fluidly moving between kinds of time, drawing in what is useful to me at the moment.