Happy New Year!!
There is something about a new year that is so exciting. However, I think this time most of us have been looking forward to 2020 ending rather than 2021 starting. I have never wanted a year to end so badly.
For the majority of us, the stress from 2020 came from events that were completely out of our hands. For me, my year started with my car getting stolen and destroyed on January 2nd. I (and I suspect many of you too) kept asking myself, and God, the same question “Why me? Why now? Why my family?”
I am a huge fan of Lord of the Rings and there is a particular interaction that I love. The main character Frodo is lamenting about all the terrible things he is dealing with and will have to face, he is expressing this to his old wise wizard friend:
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
I don’t know how 2021 will be (although with the vaccine on the horizon things do look so much hopeful); all I know is that I can decide what to do with the time that is given to me.
With that in mind, my husband and I decided to do our New Year Resolutions:
Last year, we treated it more like a wish list of things we hope would have happened, this year we are looking at different areas of our lives and writing things that we will commit to doing with the time that is given to us.
We broke down our New Year’s resolutions into the following categories:
- Spiritual: Actions I am going to take to improve my relationship with God and with my fellow brothers and sisters.
- Financial: Actions I am taking so my husband and I are on the same page with the same goals.
- Marriage: Actions I am taking to become a better wife.
- Health: Actions I am taking to improve my fitness and my struggle with S.A.D.
- Home: Actions I am taking to make my home a more loving place to live in.
- Family: Actions that my husband and I are taking to grow our family.
- Friends: Actions that will deepen my relationships.
- Fun: Actions that are fun.
All of the Actions are things that I am scheduling in my planner and treating them with the same level of importance as a doctor’s appointment.
For example, in the Spiritual category, I want to study the Bible more in-depth, so I am scheduling blocks of time in my schedule in which I will ‘show up’ on time and turn off all distractions.
I challenge you to do the same thing. We really don’t know what will happen in 2021, but we can get rid of that 2020 emotional baggage. Decide what to do with the time that is given to you.
So HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
Love,
Milo
