Wordful Wednesday//My Take on Resolutions for 2015

Did I make any New Year's resolutions for 2015? I did; however, they were more like...suggestions.
You see, every year--like I'm sure most people do--I want a clean slate.
To "eat better," "work out more," "try new things," "do ___ more often," etc.
But when those things don't always happen (for whatever reason), no matter what excuse I can make, I always pin the blame back on myself.
I'm tired of doing that. It's stressful, and it's no better for me than simply not setting any new resolutions at all. I just want to shake myself and say, "Hey. Be you this year. Maybe be a better you if you can. I mean, if that works out. If it doesn't, that's OK too."

I don't want to share the few suggestions I made for myself. Some say if shared, it allows for others to help support them and allow them to take their resolutions more seriously. Great on them. If I shared mine, I think I would only share the resolutions I felt "worthiest" and most "appropriate" for the public--and then I probably wouldn't even attempt those because they wouldn't be the ones closest to my heart or well-being.

So, the few true suggestions that I made and that I kept all to myself are for me to account for. Me and only me. If I don't do this or don't do that for a day or two, it's fine! ONLY I KNOW. I feel like that leaves less stress on my behalf and Lord knows I'm all about keeping stress to a minimum.

I feel like resolutions are just one more way for us to be weighed down by strict guidelines and/or deadlines.
It's like taking a college course that you've failed so many times before you don't even know why you keep signing up. Eventually, you take the failed class so many times that you're not allowed to take it anymore.
What to do next? Go forward with life without that class! Without that class's syllabus, guidelines, deadlines, lectures, failures. That's what I'm doing this year with my minimal suggestions and my RESOLUTION not to share them.

I am beginning fresh this year. By allowing myself to, for the first time since I can remember, remove a heavy burden from my shoulders. And that burden has been trying to conform to the notion that there are no excuses for failure, especially when you yourself are the one setting up the goals for potential failure. We all have excuses, and that's nothing to be ashamed about. I just don't want to blame myself any longer. I don't want to look back at the past and say I did ___ a lot more then. But I also don't want to daydream and say I'm definitely going to be doing ___ so much in the future! (psshh)
If I'm going to be working with any kind of system, I want it to involve me living in the present.

I'm going to listen to me more. I'm going to listen to God more.
By doing so, I hope I can come across what I am meant to do this year.


Happy New Year, folks! Spend it well.