2024 is already a couple of weeks old. How many of us have already bailed on our resolutions? I can honestly say I haven’t. I didn’t make any!
I think I’ve reached the age where the idea of long-term resolutions (exercise, eat healthy, blah, blah, blah…) just seem like a waste of time. I much prefer to go day by day and try to do what I can in each of the 24 hours I’ve been given.
A writer friend shared an article from a newsletter she subscribes to and one sentence in particular stood out for me as we begin this next collection of minutes, days, months:
“Our very life here depends directly on continuous acts of beginning.”
(from Maria Popova in the Marginalian Newsletter)
Ain’t that the truth? Every day is a new beginning. No matter how mundane we think our days are, they never really are. The traffic to work changes depending on weather, accidents, how long we delayed getting out of bed. Parents are constantly jolted into new ways to react as their children grow out of clothing, learn new words, practice new skills. Even when I was 16 and worked in factory doing the same repetitive work of glueing insoles into new shoes, no day was exactly the same. Co-workers laughed or complained. Orders were needed yesterday—or tomorrow. People felt well or called out sick.
Our lives are “continuous acts of beginning.”
Writers see these changes all the time. If you write as a hobby, you can put words down when you feel like it or when you are inspired. If you make your living as a writer, the words better show up nearly every day. It doesn’t matter how you feel. Your “inspiration” is a paycheck. The same is true if you are a writer who hopes to be making a living.
I think that’s why Popova’s quote stuck with me. I don’t think we need to make resolutions. I think we need patience: patience to survive all the little interruptions the world throws at us when we are trying to just get through the day, just get through our little daily goals.
So, this 2024, I wish you all patience. Patience with yourself. Patience with the world’s interruptions. Patience to forgive them.
Maybe we can check back in December and see how we did.
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