The Journey

Drink more water

Break a sweat everyday

Meditate

Learn to speak Spanish

Tend my own sadhana

Express gratitude

Get to 12% body fat

These are my “resolutions” for the coming year. But I don’t think of them as resolutions so much as things I need to do to get to My Best Self. I am excited to do these things,  find out about them, and to see what would happen if I actually could pull some of them off.

I read in the paper today that for most people, their New Years Resolutions are already toast.  (Today is January 8th).  They’re done and it’s back to business as usual. “Resolutions are stupid; I can’t do this.”

I think the big problem is that most people think of their their resolutions as skinny, treacherous tight ropes they have to inch across carefully and delicately, and if they fall: Game Over. They’re out.  (Thanks for playing.)

But what if, instead of a tightrope, we looked at resolutions as noble challenges deliberately placed along the way in a “Sacred Pilgrimage” we are making to the “Shrine of Our Best Selves”?

Because if you are on a journey, a journey that you may even think of as sacred, to find your True and Best Self,  what you now call your “resolutions” are simply part of the trail. If you do them, you’ll proceed faster and more efficiently, so you want to do them.  But if you don’t, you can’t abandon them.  That’d be stupid because progress would halt.

So when the inevitable happens, and you stub your toe, or get a blister, or it starts to rain, or you get lost, or a wild animal frightens you, you don’t say, “Fuck it, this quest is stupid, I can’t do this, I’m done.” No. You just get a bandaid, or put on a poncho, or consult a map, or carry a pointy stick to defend yourself.  That’s because you realize that the setbacks come with the territory.  You’re Indiana Jones for crissakes! You’ve got to get this job done! Even if it takes your whole effin’ life! (And guess what? It WILL!!)

Am I right?

(Of course I’m right.)

There is a Zen saying: Fall down 7 times, get up 8.

So let’s boot up and get this journey goin’!  Whaddya say?