Thursday, December 30, 2010

Look to this Day: A Reflection on Resolutions

Somewhere around 27 years ago, I forewent writing New Year's Resolutions. To look out over the landscape of 365 days with the confidence that I had enough self-discipline to live a new life -- which the resolutions foreshadow and promise -- seemed deflating rather than invigorating. But I can live one day at a time in full and rich ways that hold promise.

In essence, I suppose, my new year's resolution became the same resolution for the past 27 years: live each day as fully as I can. As trite as it sounds, it seems the most authentic way for me to live. I am not always successful even in that bite-sized morsel of a year, 1/365 of the new year, but I get a new chance each day.

Probably the best writing of this entry follows (because it is not mine!):

Look to this day,
For it is life,
The very life of life.
In its brief course lie all
The realities and verities of existence,
The bliss of growth,
The splendor of action,
The glory of power --

For yesterday is but a dream,
And tomorrow is only a vision,
But today, well lived,
Makes every yesterday a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well, therefore, to this day.

Sanskrit Proverb


Happy New Year and best wishes for 2011.