resolutions?

[keryx]

Do you make resolutions or set goals for the year at some point each year? And if so, what do you or the world gain from that process?

I've gone a long time without setting any kind of Gregorian new year resolution. Mostly I think that tradition results in pretty self-absorbed goals, as if there's a standard menu we tend to choose from, you know: "lose x pounds", "run marathon", "quit smoking" and the occasional "give to charity". They're generally about making individuals feel goal-oriented, with some imagined happy future in mind. They turn evil, too, when people but aside the goals they weren't all that passionate about and then berate themselves for "failing".

Not that resolutions can't be broader-reaching, or that they can't mix altruism and feeling good about oneself. The conventional ones, though, really do trend towards me me me me. I feel like they cross a line between a desire for goodness and just overwhelming, grasping desire for the future, for something more, something that once had will just translate into another more.

For awhile, I set goals each year around my birthday, which is frankly the same thing but with less recrimination. Still pretty selfish. Still very imaginary-future-oriented. I'm trying to shift my thinking towards things I want to hold, or pay attention to, without getting all spun up about some projected outcome. Like, give everything to what I'm doing right now (including forgetting to give everything), or seeing people more clearly or more gently.

I'm curious what others do, mostly because you know, you're interesting and I wonder what you think. So, what do you think?

Comments

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

I tend to make short-term goals because they're easier in a short-attention span world. So, I don't resolve to do something all year, but I might (as I have recently done) resolve to do at least one sun salutation every day for 30 days. Or I might resolve to floss my teeth every day consistently for 14 days. And so on.

I think they're more manageable, and often if you establish a good habit for a short while, they'll eventually become ingrained good habits.

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

I have come around to liking change that happens naturally and organically, and not forcing things. So I think about something for a long time and then actions happen or don't. I think it was 2007 that I made a whole slew of resolutions and it just made me not do things.

[firecat]

Goals bug me but having no direction also isn't good for me. This year I made signposts.

Maybe they are self-absorbed, but given how much time I'm spending being a caregiver right now, I think I deserve to have a little self-absorption.

[peregrin8.livejournal.com]

I have made one ferociously serious (and ferociously gleeful) resolution: I'm resigning as my own worst critic and taking that long-vacant (if oft-advertised) job as my own best supporter and cheerleader.