Down with New Year Resolutions

I have never liked New Years. In the beginning my dislike stemmed from a place of disappointment. I was a soap opera watching tween/teen and when I attended parties on New Years it was never like it was portrayed on television. No one was dressed as fancy, the ambiance was dull, it just never met my expectations based on what tv taught me it was SUPPOSED to look like. Then as I got older and wiser I realized that all of that was insignificant compared to the real meaning of what New Years represents. A time of new beginnings, of being the person you want to be. A time to get yourself back on track, eat well, exercise , spend more time with the people you love, be more grateful. All of these are wonderful notions and without a doubt most of us have have things we need to work on. What I reject is the notion that we only do this on New Years. I have always felt that every day we wake up is a new opportunity to start again, to make changes, to be the best version of ourself. I hate the notion of putting that off because I’ll just wait for some ambiguous date in the future to make it happen. This year in particular has made this more of a reality for me. I was reading last night about the surgery I will need to have. Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center has preformed 55 of these surgeries in 18 years ( obviously not a widely preformed procedure), no one has died however 45% of patients had at least one major neurological complication post surgery. What if that’s me? I don’t want to put off what I could do today or any day for that matter in the hopes that tomorrow will be the day when I finally get my act together. Don’t mistake this for wanting to be “perfect” because I firmly believe that word should be removed from our vocabulary. What I want to be is satisfied with how I show up today. When I lay my head on my pillow each night I want to believe I did my absolute best today, and tomorrow I will try again. I will not give up if I stumble and wait for New Years next year, I will begin again every day.