To Resolve or Not to Resolve

Today is 30 December. I am on a train bound from Kharkiv to Kyiv. Tomorrow I will fly to Switzerland to ring in the New Year with my daughter and her family. It will be a nice way to start the next year.

For a lot of people, New Year is a time to pause and look back not only on the past year but on how they’ve lived their lives up to this point. They look at what they accomplished or failed to accomplish in the past year, what good and bad things came their way, and they make some determination about whether it was a good or bad year. Then, usually, they usually feel some level of determination to make the next year better.

New Year is often about setting goals, making changes, doing and living better. We make those famous (or infamous, as the case may be) New Year resolutions. We “resolve” to change what we think needs changing. Maybe we need to stop a bad habit or adopt a good one. We resolve to work out more, lose weight, stop smoking, work harder, not work so hard, be more responsible, lighten up a little, be nicer to the people around us… yada, yada, yada.

Resolving to Not Resolve

Many scoff at the whole notion of making such resolutions. After all, the success rate for New Year resolutions is probably less than five percent. We have good intentions and greet the New Year with feelings of enthusiasm and determination, but after a short while – a few weeks or maybe just a few days (or hours) – we fail to keep the resolution. We fall back into familiar patterns, and the whole idea of the resolution falls to the wayside.

Nothing changes, and we feel even worse for the failure.

I understand the skepticism. I have certainly had my share of failed resolutions, and because of that, I haven’t really made any for at least a few years. But I have made them in the past, and sometimes I was successful. I recall some years back when I had fallen out of my exercise routine for some time, and I resolved to start attending a gym and getting back in shape. I joined Holiday Health Club, which later became Balley’s Fitness. Not only did I stick with it, I got into the best shape of my life.

Getting Help

I’ve often wondered why that worked out while some similar attempts in more recent years have not. I guess one reason was the environment. At that time, I quickly fell in with a great group of people who really motivated me to want to be at the gym every evening. I met some of the best people I have ever known in my life, and many of them are still good friends so many years later.

The social aspect of a fitness center cannot be overlooked. If you don’t have a relationship partner to help motivate you and push you, then a group of friends like that is the next best thing. I wanted to be at the gym to work out, for sure, but it was so much more motivating to see and talk with friends, get together after the gym, make plans for weekend get-togethers and just generally enjoy an active social life.  It was a special time.

I have had a couple of other successful (at least for a time) New Year resolutions. But like the great majority of people, most of my resolutions have been half-hearted and didn’t last. But in this regard, at least, I’ve been in good company.

It’s been a lot harder to stick with any kind of personal resolution in these latest years of living alone and not having that same kind of close-knit group to motivate and support. But it is not impossible; it just means that there has to be a deeper desire and a stronger will. But those are two things I seem to have lost. Giving up and giving in is easier, and there hasn’t been sufficient reason to turn away from “easy.”

That’s why I haven’t made resolutions much in recent years. I know they won’t last, so what’s the point?

The Proverbial Fresh Start 

Actually, I think there can be value in using New Year as a time to resolve to improve. There is no other time of the year that presents us with such a strong and distinct feeling of newness – new opportunity and new hope. If only for the psychological aspect, it is a perfect moment to start fresh – and we always like the idea of getting a fresh start. But, the resolution has to be meaningful, and one has to have the determination and motivation to see it through.

Sometimes we also need some external help. The caring support of a close person, together with some strictness when necessary, can go a long way toward helping a resolution take hold and the change to blossom. If that strictness is perceived as, or actually is, just nagging, then it’s no help at all. But when it is a sincere desire to help, and when the person trying to change recognizes the love behind the pushing, then it can make a world of difference.

So, am I making a resolution this year? Well, I guess I would not be writing this if I wasn’t looking at the opportunity for a fresh start at something. But I’m not going to shout it out to the world here – I’ve done that before and it was a losing proposition. I’ll just challenge myself; I will know whether I’ve failed or succeeded, and that is enough.

What about you? Are you ready to change something and make 2015 a better year?

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p.s. It Was a Good Year

In the beginning of this post I mentioned that people often look back at the year that is ending and engage in some retrospective evaluation. “Was it a good year or a bad one?” “Did I achieve or fail?” I think it’s not a bad thing to stop and take stock of how things have gone.

And what about me? Well, I have been taking a good look at 2014 lately and asking myself if I would consider it a good one or one I’d rather forget. To be sure, I’ve had some challenges and difficulties, mainly physical, and I’ve lost a fair amount of money due to the problems in Ukraine and the plummeting value of the hryvnia. But there has been a lot more good than bad… a LOT more.

It has been a good year indeed, and I expect 2015 to be even better.

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The Universe in a Pool of Water

I am sitting by a pool and fountain in the center of the main corridor in a local shopping mall called Karavan. It is a fairly large pool with eight jets that shoot water in arcs toward the center of the pool. The bottom is littered with coins – the legacy of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of wishes made.

As I watch the spurts of water fly into the pool, and look at the ripple patterns they make on the surface, I think of how the pool is like the universe, or maybe the great pool of creative energy that flows throughout the universe and connects everything and everyone.

The spurts of water remind me of individual intentions entered into that flow of energy by each of us. Or maybe they are like the actions taken by individuals.  Or both.

Each spurt creates its own pattern of ripples in the pool, successive concentric circles rolling outward in soft waves along the surface toward the edge where, eventually, the water spills over into a holding tank to begin again. Each spurt has an effect on the entire pool.

The different jets send water into the pool at different times, in different patterns, and in different frequencies. For a few seconds, the pool remains calm, then a single jet of water interrupts that calm. The spurts might enter singly, with a second or more between them. Other times multiple jets send short bursts into the pool at about the same time, and there are moments when all the jets bring forth long streams of water simultaneously.

The effects on the surface from these different patterns of water entry make me think of how the thoughts and actions of different people must affect the creative energy of the universe. Just as one thought or action moves the flow slightly in one direction, another can bend or alter that direction, even if just a smidgeon.

When all the jets send long spurts into the pool simultaneously, the surface of the water appears chaotic. And it seems to me that, with billions of souls just on our planet alone, this might be how the flow of universal power appears: chaotic. With so much action and interaction, the ripples reach the edge in a completely different manner than they probably would from a single spurt.

Nevertheless, they do reach the edge.

The Difference

But the universe is not a pool of water. It is much more. The pool of water reacts only to physical laws. Something enters the surface and a symmetrical pattern of ripples is released. When something else enters, both patterns are affected according to laws of space, time, force and volume. The pool does not possess creative intelligence to determine the value of each interaction and adjust the flow for the best benefit of all.

The universe, on the other hand, is the epitome of creative intelligence. We can’t begin to fathom its immensity, complexity or how it can sort and manage the incoming “spurts” of intentions or actions from billions upon billions of souls. But it can, and it does. And it works to fulfill intentions in ways that benefit the most.

I guess the point is that, just as every spurt, even every drop, of water that enters the pool affects the movement of the water, so too does every thought and action of each one of us affect the energy of the universe. The effect might seem small, but it is there.

And because the energy of the universe is a creative energy, I believe it responds in a coordinated and intelligent way so that each one of us can create things in life – good things and, unfortunately, bad – through our thoughts and deeds. There are laws at work here too: laws of force, frequency and intensity. The more we focus on our intentions, the more intensity and consistency we give those intentions, and the more frequently we repeat them, the more likely it is that our intentions will be manifested.

Making Wishes (intentions)

Before I began this post, I made a wish and tossed a coin into the fountain. To the hundreds of other wishes in the pool I added my own wish to be free of back pain. And in so doing, I added that desire to the billions of intentions given up to the universe every day. It was a wish worth 25 kopeks.

As I finish this, I am about to toss another coin into the pool, another intention of desire to the power of the universe. This one is worth 50 kopeks, and the subject of the wish will remain between me and the universe.

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