So your boss is nagging you for that overdue report and you know when you get home you have that worsening plumbing leak to repair. The kids are at that awkward stage (and have they ever not<\/i> been?) and the spousal unit (or non-spousal equivalent thereof) gives you the dagger-eye for not being attentive enough. <\/p>\n
The cause you most cherish in all the world is making so many demands on you that you start to wonder how you ever came to love it that much. Meanwhile, you never know what the NSA, the TSA, the ATF, or the IRS might spring on you tomorrow. But whatever it is or isn’t, you fear it. You tell yourself you don’t, or you shouldn’t. But somewhere in that one, obscure private corner of your soul that ought to belong to you alone<\/i>, you fear it.<\/p>\n
—–<\/p>\n
Unlike most of you hereabouts who don’t make New Year’s resolutions if the comments are representative, I do make them. Ellendra was about the only commentor on the same bandwagon. (Hi, Ellendra!)<\/p>\n
Like everybody else who tries, I also fail at them. But I’ve found they keep me pointed in the right direction. In time, resolutions … resolve. It might be in a different way than you imagined or at a much later time than you hoped. But … you get there.<\/p>\n
This year, though, I found myself down to the true stubborncusses of resolution-making. Those ones I’ve made year after year to no avail. The ones where I’ve gone so far as to post behavior schedules above my desk or slap Post-It notes on the bathroom mirror, only to find myself ignoring them as thoroughly as if they were written in Cantonese.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Take several days a week off from the computer …<\/p>\n
Don’t spend money on X days …<\/p>\n
Don’t ever plunk at the computer solely for the sake of plunking at the computer or shutting out the world …<\/p>\n
Put more time and thought into what you eat …<\/p>\n
All amounting to don’t fritter, don’t rush, don’t avoid, don’t be addicted<\/i>.<\/p>\n
For the last couple of weeks I’ve been trying to draft these same old resolutions in a way that would finally make me heed them. A futile effort.<\/p>\n
Then when I was walking the dogs in the woods yesterday the words came to me: “Live deliberately.”<\/p>\n
My shoulders relaxed (I didn’t know they’d been tense). My stride slowed and lengthened. Breath deepened. My deadline-spinning brain let go of the noise — and a few hours later, the writing was a breeze.<\/p>\n
At the moment the words drifted down on me, I didn’t recall where they came from. Something Buddhist, I supposed. It took me a while to remember what you probably got instantly: Thoreau. Walden<\/i>.<\/a><\/p>\n I confess to never reading Walden<\/i>. All that (ugh) nature<\/i>. But even without that association the words “live deliberately” carry their own meaning and magic.<\/p>\n It might be a different meaning<\/a> for different people<\/a>. But whatever it may be<\/a> (NFI on the book on that last link, BTW) … it’s holistic. Wholeistic, as it ought to be spelled.<\/p>\n