figuring things out

Around new year's time, I do not usually feel much newness. I seem to think it's just another day, the only thing making it different is the number on the calendar. I don't set goals or try to ask anything more of myself for the coming year or anything like that. I know that I'm supposed to, and I might make resolutions just in case they come true, but I've never felt new. Part of that might be because of have super high expectations of what "new" might feel like, but I really never feel that into it. I always want to and usually sort of pretend to be into new year's resolutions and all that, but I'm just not, as a general rule.

Well, this New Year's Day, I expected to feel the same old cynical, anti-resolutions-because-I-won't-keep-them-anyway-and-it's-just-another-day attitude, but instead, I felt a weight off my shoulders, a fresh sort of feeling, with more energy than I have had in ages, which still is not saying much, by the way. But it is something. Anyway, so for the first time in years, I made new year's resolutions. So I thought that deserved a blog post.

Here's the first: I decided to stop being so concerned about pleasing everybody! I think I mostly please them all without trying anyway, but typically, in the event that I can't please quite everyone, I feel so wildly stressed and unhappy. I never thought I was a "people pleaser" type, but my husband has patiently proven to me that I am. I am determined to stop, so here is my new motto:

I am not going to try to please everyone anymore. They will simply have to find another way to be happy, one that does not involve me. I am not going to do it.

Now, that might sound a little selfish, on the one hand, because how mean of me not to care if people are happy, and conceited on the other, to suppose that anyone was depending on me for happiness anyhow. Well, about the first hand, people are responsible for their own contentment. I have to be responsible for my own, and no one else's. So that alright. And about the second hand: I am sure nobody is depending on me quite how I think, but it is really refreshing to be able to believe that I am not responsible for their reactions to me in any case.

I don't mean that I don't care about people, and their states of happiness, and I don't mean that I would not do what I could to help someone be happy. And I know that we are our brother's keeper and all that. But I felt an unhealthy responsibility to do everything that anyone wanted me to do, even if it was not in my power to do it, hence all the stress. I am rid of that now, and I feel so much better, just weightless!

The rest of my resolutions sort of flowed out of the freedom that gave me:

To do what I want in the mornings, before work, instead of feeling bad about all this free time because most other people can't have the mornings and early afternoons off the way I do. So, I am going to...

~sleep til 10 more often if I feel I need it
~ride my orange bicycle a lot more
~paint if I feel like it
~dance if I feel like it
~study a foreign language if I feel like it
~keep my closet gorgeous enough to go shopping in
~practice singing if I want
~read every day, my Bible and other things
~make clothes when I am inspired to do so
~study Arthurian legend
~cook if I feel like it
~see friends if I feel like it
and practice whether I feel like it or not.

Of course, there are chores and other things that come up, but being more relaxed about things means it will all get done and be okay.

Happy New Year!