The Resolution

Sometimes I feel like New Year's resolutions are such a jaded idea. I used to hate listening to people talk about their New Year's resolutions. Have you ever heard anyone talk about how they followed through with their resolution from the year before?

In my mind, people who committed to resolutions were kind of superficial. Here's what I mean. I always thought that people who were constantly making New Year's resolution usually weren't setting very lofty goals for themselves. The whole lose 20 pounds resolution never seemed to be a great goal to me. So, you lose 20 pounds. Does that mean you have to keep it off? What if you lose 5 pounds four times throughout the year and you gain it back every time. Does that count?

Anyway, I've started to understand the importance of setting goals. The older I get the more I realize that a life without little milestones can sometimes become a life that lacks direction. So, New Year's resolutions are important because they are milestones. However, I think that the way we choose to formulate those milestones is important.

We can lose 20 pounds, but is that going to make our lives more meaningful and fulfilling? I like the ideas of goals, but they cannot be completely shallow. If losing 20 pounds is transformed into eating healthier than that seems like a good way to jump start your year. You can stop smoking, but what are you going to replace it with? These kinds of decisions require that we think them out.

A recent column in Relevant Magazine, one of my favorites, mentioned an article by Huffington Post writer Gretchen Rubin. Ms. Rubin decided to pick up a New Year's habit made popular by her sister. He sister places a one word blurb on her resolution and uses it throughout the year. This way it is easy to remember and it doesn't have to be a precise goal. Instead, it becomes more of a motif for her year. It sounded like a great idea so I decided to give it a try.

This year I'm choosing two resoltuions. My first blurb will be GREEN. GREEN reminds me that their are tons of used things out there that are beautiful and useful. I've spent the past 7 months shopping in thrifts stores as a way to save and to remember that so many of the clothes we buy are tainted by slave wages that so many third world workers are paid to make them at a tenth of their cost.

My second theme is SOAR. I have always wanted to travel and see new things. However, I've yet to step foot on a plane or train for that matter. I have a cousin in New York and every year we discuss the possibility of me coming up for a visit. I never seem to follow through. SOAR reminds me to make my life an adventure. I'm too old to have never been anywhere and I think God really loves the idea of us broadening our horizons.

I hope you come to see, as I have, that New Year's resolutions are not a superficial idea. Realize that this is a chance for you to live a better life by changing the way you live for the better. Good luck and let me know what you come up with.

- Blake Trent