NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS: MAKING THEM OR NOT

Many Americans are busy making New Year’s resolutions for 2020. The tradition of making New Year’s resolutions dates back to ancient Babylonia. The American Medical Association reported 40-50% of Americans make New Year’s resolutions each year. One British study indicated 88% of respondents failed at keeping their resolutions. Still, people all over the world press on, vowing

each  year they’ll do things for the first time (take up yoga, for example), stop doing others, (smoking, perhaps), or improve at others (get better at golf of tennis). By February, these pledges have often gone out the window, replaced by the habits and behaviors of previous years.

As we did in our last blog, we step away from politics for a few moments and share our thoughts about New Year’s resolutions. Each of us has a different perspective on them:

Rob: Looking at it Conceptually

I’ve made and broken hundreds of New Year’s resolutions. I’ve promised I’d do (or not do) all kinds of things. Participating in this blog, and discussing the subject with my colleagues, made me consider what’s really happened.

In reality, I haven’t made many New Year’s resolutions. I’ve listed goals and targets or come up with random lists of things I might try

doing. I now think a real New Year’s resolution involves a concept or idea people decide they will adopt that potentially improves the state of their existence. A real resolution isn’t a target list of better golf scores or a commitment that I will darken the door of the health club more often. A real New Year’s Resolution involves adopting an attitude not heretofore exhibited or a concept that, if followed, could promote real change in many aspects of life and permit accomplishments of things truly valued.

So, this year, rather than list as New Year’s resolutions targets for more (or less) of this or that, or random things I’ll try doing in 2020, like taking my son fishing for the first time, I made one resolution: I will exhibit discipline in my activities so I can better execute plans I make.

Henry: It takes Time

I don’t believe I thought about New Year’s resolutions at all during the first 20 years of my life. I don’t  remember my parents talking about them and the practice just wasn’t followed. Perhaps that’s because my mother and father emphasized doing things every day that fostered improvement rather than just at a time certain, like the start of a new year.

The next 40 or so years I paused each year and recognized new beginnings and a chance for renewing all, but I didn’t promise myself I’d do this or that. Those years were busy with family, work, church, and community activities. Each day presented challenges for improving something. Picking specifics at the beginning of a new year seemed a waste of time.

For the last nine years, during this new experience of retirement, I’ve had more time

each day for concentrating on growth in multiple ways. I now believe growth and improvement take time and each day presents a chance for reflection on attacking those challenges. The time this takes doesn’t lend itself to quick fixes, promises, or artificially imposed dates or deadlines. I view each New Year as a time for pondering how thankful I am for the past year and I reflect on how I can carry forward an appreciation for the blessings received.

I hope this approach enables and encourages growth every day, month, and year.

Woodson: A Couple of Dirty Little Secrets

I have a couple of dirty little secrets only my

family knows. After today, you will too.  I’m aworkaholic. I also have a savior complex. I have difficulty saying “no” if people request

my help. When the character traits of a workaholic and someone with a savior complex converge in one person, you get someone often over-extended. 

I have never made a New Year’s resolution. This year will be different. I have finally come to the knowledge friends and loved ones will be just fine with a lot less help from me. This year, I will say “no” when in the past I’ve said “yes.”  At my age, if I am ever going to learn to say “no,” now is the time.

I’m interested in becoming a better person, living each day as if it’s my last. I hope I can complete my financial legacy for my family, contribute to the advancement of racial and economic justice, and expand my knowledge of real estate. I’d also like to just enjoy each of the days I have left. 

So, here’s my New Year’s resolution, folks:  In 2020, I will say “no” to anything that

doesn’t advance the aforementioned interests. I will devote time for reflecting on, studying, and working on just those matters, with rare exceptions.

 

How about you? Are some of you at the same fork in the road? Which road will you take?  

                                      

CHRISTMAS 2019: ITS MEANING FOR US

We wish our readers Happy Holidays. Thanks for being with us this year. Today, we offer thoughts on the season.

                  

Woodson:  Let’s Take the Pain Out of Christmas

Christmas is too commercial and, in many ways, painful. Commercializing Christmas has too often drowned out the story of Jesus.

                  

As a farm kid with few possessions, a belief in Santa Claus allowed me to engage in an

expectation fantasy. Hours were spent leading up to Christmas imagining what I would find under the Christmas tree. Invariably, I received a cap gun with holster, socks, and an assortment of fruits, nuts, and candies. Christmas after Christmas, I imagined myself receiving something really big, perhaps a pedal-driven car or a pony. 

On the Christmas after I turned eight, I received my assortment of fruits, nuts, and candy, but no toy. Someone told me Santa Claus was a fantasy, and my

parents had decided to no longer indulge this costly fantasy. I approached an older brother, hoping to be consoled but he responded, “Dang, man, you still believing that Santa Claus business?” I was crushed. That painful memory stays with me. Hope and I vowed never to lie to our children about a Santa Claus. But we would give gifts. Even that decision left us with the complication of having to decide who to give gifts to, which remains stressful for me. I don’t enjoy buying Christmas gifts. I think I’m contributing to the commercialization of Christmas and perverting the Christian faith. 

There have been times when Hope and I had to charge these expenses to our credit cards when short on cash. So, we spent money we didn’t have on things we didn’t need. 

            

Christmas should be a time to reflect solely on

Jesus’s birth and life and how his life informs our own. I feel like I am fighting a losing battle between Christianity, deceit, and commercialism. A great meal and great conversation on Christmas, without the gifts, would make Christmas what I’d like it to be.

Rob:  Let’s Stay Together

Debating the meaning of Christmas became a political flashpoint a few years ago. Conservatives, who see only a religious meaning

for Christmas, argued secularists were scrubbing Christmas from the public sphere or making it just about commerce. Some saw a “War on Christmas.” The

issue hasn’t flared up much this year as impeachment and the 2020 campaign consumed space in public discourse. So, in an atmosphere not brimming with angst over what the holiday means, I took a step back when contemplating its meaning for me.

I could focus on religion. I practice progressive

Signs of Religions

Christianity, so celebrating the birth of Jesus matters. However, I regard that practice as a year-round activity rooted in understanding and following the teachings of Jesus, not the miracles supposedly attendant to his birth and death. I respect the religious aspect of Christmas, but that’s not my focus.

In our family, and for me, Christmas means togetherness. I live in the same town with only one

of my children; the other four reside near or far, but in each case “away.” Since my wife’s death nine years ago, we’ve rotated where we gather. I now find the process of convening, of making whatever trip I must make so we are together, a valuable part of the exercise.

Christmas, therefore, means celebrating the fact we remain a family despite losing Ida, despite the trials and tribulations of children growing up, and despite my own struggles as I age and experience transitions. As the song says, Christmas is “the most wonderful time of the year” because, for us, it’s when we’re together. At this stage, that’s what Christmas means for me.

                                 

                         Andy Williams' The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

                    

Henry: Christmas Everlasting
My memory pulls forth concentric spheres. The

inside, closed, perhaps restricted and protected sphere streams images of two brothers and their parents experiencing incredible joy and happiness waiting for the morning.  There were friends, church, family, gifts, food, speeches, and prayer for all, especially the “less fortunate.”  Acceptance and faith without doubt prevailed - for doubt springs from examination.

As those memories expand, the next sphere reveals a recognition of sadness and an awareness that all is not as well as it once seemed at an earlier time.  The protective shielding of the first sphere is no longer present. Poverty, fear, doubt, hopelessness, despair, hunger, and anger are present, invading the space between the first and second spheres.

As the first and second spheres merge, a third

sphere forms, enveloping all and expanding at light speed, speaking to my mind, soul, and spirit. Hope inspired by love required by my spiritual belief in redemption, forgiveness, and universal acceptance extinguishes all doubt for the moment and takes me to the innocence of the first sphere. Here, however, a more informed faith supporting hope pervades my world becoming our world. This last all-encompassing sphere contains all but has no limits. 

We are forgiven. “For with God nothing shall be impossible.” Luke 1:37

Joy-PLEASE