Should I Stop Wasting Time in The New Year?

Welcome 2022! A New Year, A New Me!

With the New Year comes a whole industry push to set new goals – and we all should make resolutions, raise the bar, be better, farTHER, FASTER!

STOP!

I’m not a fan of the word should. In fact, when I hear the words, “You SHOULD…”, the rebel in me delights in doing the exact opposite, or at least anything but what I “should” be doing. And if I hear “New Year, New Me” one more time, my head will explode.

I agree that we collectively have made the choice to experience the start of the New Year as a new beginning, a reset, if you will. And with that in mind, rather than pretend I “should be a new me”, I take time on New Year’s Day (and well into January) to simply reflect on the past year. It’s a yearly ritual, in which I light candles, pull out my journal and colored pencils and allow myself to sink into meditation.

Questions or ideas I contemplate:

1. What has worked over the past year? Was it planned? Was it unexpected? How can I build on it?
2. What habits or rituals have supported what I’ve claimed is important to me? What have not? What new ones can I create, develop, or embrace?
3. Have I had a nagging thought about letting something go? A behavior? A belief? A relationship? Do I have the courage to explore that?
4. Using my imagination, what do I envision for myself in the future? By this time next year?

Of course, this year, like last year, was a particular challenge, given the isolation of Covid and the pervasive uncertainty of the times in which we live.

What came up for me this year a revelation.

I need to stop wasting time.

One of the unexpected silver linings of the pandemic is the collective call to everyone to grow the muscle of “I don’t know”, a muscle that is generally atrophied in we humans, who thrive on our misguided perceptions of control. We do NOT know what the future holds. I no longer want to waste my time, wondering about what is to come, wallowing in anger and frustration. It’s time to embrace what IS and get to work.

In these challenging times, I feel the urgency of speaking out, sharing my voice (a.k.a. my TRUTH). This is not the urgency, mind you, of “goal setting” and “being productive”. It’s time to be specific about what is most important to focus on in my life – in the world as it is today. Alongside of that, I need to let go of spending time reacting to drama and having conversations with people that hold beliefs based on alternative realities. No more procrastinating on projects that speak to this truth because I’ve deluded myself into thinking that “there is plenty of time”.

The time is NOW.

Here is to reclaiming time. Here is to choosing what matters most.

#theedgeofeveryday #lifeanatomy #meditation #myheadwillexplode