Absolution from your Resolutions

Picture has NOTHING to do with article. Unless your New Year's Resolution is to do more swashbuckling.

Published in The Packet

I scrolled through my Facebook feed and saw the following quote: “In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.” This quote, wrongly attributed to Buddha, resonates with me this New Year when so many of us get busy writing resolutions that we’re convinced will change our lives for the better. I love working towards a goal, so I’m not one to discourage resolution making, but have you noticed yourself making the same resolutions year after year and completing them with little to no success? Last year, I realized that I’d had the same three goals on my resolution list for about eight years. It made me wonder if it’s time for to gracefully let go of the things not meant for me.

Maybe I’m not meant to run a marathon. Maybe I’m not meant to play the guitar proficiently. Maybe learning to salsa dance is never going to happen, and maybe, just maybe, that is okay. Maybe the current iteration of myself is perfectly fine the way it is.

Accepting yourself completely as you are right now can feel dangerous and even subversive. Society has conditioned us to believe we should constantly strive to learn, grow, and better ourselves as best we can. I grew up part of a generation that was told over and over again that if you work hard, you can do anything. But that’s not actually true. Nonetheless, if we aren’t trying to lose weight, or gain knowledge, or work harder we’re considered lazy, unacceptable, and stagnant. So we make these promises to ourselves that we never keep, only to berate ourselves and carry the burden of our failures from year to year.

I told my mom I was ready to gracefully let go of things that I’m not meant to have. She said I was misappropriating Buddha just to get out of doing things that are hard. I tried to explain that there is a tenuous difference between giving up on something and letting go of something. I think it has to do with the emotion you feel when releasing yourself from a self-imposed obligation, and the circumstances surrounding your decision. Or maybe it is just semantics.  The phrase letting go is so much nicer than the phrase giving up. It sounds more thoughtful, as if you are choosing to discontinue an action instead of succumbing to frustration.

So how do you know if its time to let go of some resolutions this year? Ask yourself how you really feel about not completing your resolution this year. Does not meeting your goal fill you with shame or levity? If you feel shame, it’s probably time to delete the words “I should” from your vocabulary and take action steps towards meeting your resolution. But if getting rid of your resolution gives you an exhilarating sense of freedom, you know that your priorities have shifted and it’s time to chase a new dream, or to be content with your life as it is this moment.

As the Buddha actually said, “A mind unruffled by the vagaries of fortune, from sorrow freed, from defilements cleansed, from fear liberated—this is the greatest blessing.”

Happy New Year!