new year resolutions – aliciajoseph

The Year We Never Saw Coming

As we wind down another year, a year I’m sure no one was anticipating when they clinked champagne glasses at the countdown to midnight, ringing in the year 2020. Celebrations erupted. It was 2020! The start of a new decade.

There’s so much to be excited for when a new year begins. We wipe the slate clean from the previous year. Tell ourselves we’ll do better. Right our mistakes. Change our ways, if that’s what’s needed. The resolutions begin, and we jump into January ready to take on the new year with so much promise, so much hope.

And then Covid stops us in our tracks and changes everything.

I thought I rang in the New Year in such a lame way. I was sick as hell. Spent the night on the couch, barely staying awake to watch the ball drop. Turns out, being sick was the most accurate way to start the year that would be 2020.

I think about those whose lives were taken by Covid-19. What their New Year resolutions were? Did they have expectations or goals for 2020? A new job? A promotion? Getting pregnant? Becoming engaged? Getting married? Maybe someone had become a grandparent for the first time, and 2020 was going to be all about loving that new child and building memories with him/her.

As I write this, the U.S confirmed death toll is 302,141 people. Those three hundred thousand people can no longer build memories with their loved ones, they have now become memories to their loved ones.

No one can know for sure if those people wouldn’t have died of other reasons in 2020, but Covid made sure that they did. The horrific fact is, the dying is reportedly not even close to ending. The casualty predictions are dire. Vaccines have been approved, but many thousands will die before the vaccine becomes available to them.

Two weeks ago, I recovered from my case of Covid-19. I was ashamed that I got it because it made me feel irresponsible when I thought I was being cautious. I’m not an anti-masker. I avoided large gatherings. But I still got it, and I can only hope I didn’t spread it to anyone else. My case was very mild. I’m lucky and grateful for that.

As this disastrous year comes to an end, I hope for a new year of recovery, healing, and as much peace as we can achieve.

Gautam-Buddha-Quotes-6

Photo courtesy of Scrolldroll.com

Another Year Gone

The end of another year is only weeks away. What have you done with your time? Isn’t that the burning question we ask ourselves as we reflect on the year passed, while remembering our new year resolutions from almost a year ago and cringe as we measure ourselves up to those ambitious start-of-the-year goals?

Maybe not everyone is cringing. Maybe some, or most, accomplished everything they set out to do this year. But maybe some, or most, haven’t. Either way, the good news is another year is about to begin. If you’ve achieved all your goals then it’s time to make new ones. And if you haven’t achieved your goals then you have another new year to resolve to do everything you failed to do this year.

Isn’t it great the way the calendar works?

But no judgments passed. Life is tough and unpredictable. I think it was Jon Bon Jovi who said “have a plan, but write it in pencil.”

I personally don’t make crazy, unattainable new year resolutions, unless you consider resolving to read 52 books in a year crazy and unattainable, then yes, yes I do. Although I didn’t come close to reaching that goal this year, it will still be on my list for next year. I am determined.

I also didn’t achieve my goal of finishing the book I’m currently writing. I’ve made strides but still don’t have an ending, and it’s hard to finish a book without an ending. Sometimes I wish words would just write themselves.

I joined a gym in October. I beat the new year rush. Ha. No, I just really like to walk, and I knew it’d be getting too cold to walk outside for very long. So I joined a gym. Something I haven’t done in over ten years because I had a treadmill, but it broke.

In the two months that I’ve been going to the gym I’ve found there are two kinds of people in this world. No, not the fit and unfit, but those who wipe down a machine after use and those who keep their sweat marks there for the next person to enjoy. UGH. Don’t be that person. Wipe down your machine after use.

I am curious how much more crowded the gym will be come January 1 when all those newly promised resolutions of getting in shape bring droves of new people through the doors and how long it will be before those ambitious new members start to disappear. Hmmm.

But I don’t feel I’ll have a problem sticking to a gym routine as long as I stay healthy and don’t over do it. (I have a condition). What I do anticipate I’ll have a problem with is sticking to my meditation routine.

I wasn’t very consistent with my resolution this year to meditate at least fifteen minutes a day, every day, and this bothers me even more than not reading 52 books or finishing my novel because I know at least I put the effort into the latter two, but I got lazy with my meditation practice. I’ve been off and on with it for years. Sitting alone with yourself and your mind for even as short of a time as fifteen minutes can be a struggle, but like last year, I am going to resolve to do it once again.

What are your resolutions and will you stick to them?

2018 Couldn’t Come Fast Enough

It’s a week into the new year and gyms no doubt crowd with people making good on their ambitious fitness resolutions. I do my (occasional) workouts at home, so I won’t be bothered by this sudden burst of energy from the masses. But I have a friend who is a gym rat, and I asked him to be nice to the newbies and refrain from rolling his eyes while he waits for his favorite machines that just a couple weeks ago used to be empty.

I didn’t swear to any major resolutions this year. I’ll just piggyback on last year’s resolutions I failed to accomplish. At the start of every year, my goal is always to read more books than I had the year before. In 2017, I read eleven books. Pathetic, I know. The year before I clocked in at thirty-two books. Why the dramatic fall in books read this year? I’d like to say it was because I was too busy writing books, but that wasn’t the case. I did write some, but not as much as I had intended.

I got distracted. Distracted by politics. Distracted by the threat of healthcare being taking away from millions of people. Distracted by environmental protections being rolled back. Distracted by a crazy, unhinged president whose reckless tweets and idiotic speech damage the image of our country.

So far this year I have backed off my political breaking news obsession. The TV is turned off. No more stressing over Twitter and monitoring the moron’s feed. I’m backing off this year, but I won’t bury my head in the sand. I’ll keep up with the day to day news, and I’m sure there will be plenty to keep up with. But I won’t lose myself in the worry, the stress, in the “how much worse can it get” horrifying thoughts.

2018 is about writing. Reading. Yoga. Meditation. Shelter animals. My sanity. And Robert Mueller’s investigation that will end with Trump in handcuffs.

So looking forward to 2018.

ID-10038261