Tag Archives: renewal

Memories

Finding Spring

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Spring is here

Spring is here

Time for joy

Time for cheer

Little children love to sing

The happy song of spring

For most, there is something inspiring and rejuvenating about spring. The temperatures increase and the light lingers. Yes, some will be complaining about the heat before too many weeks have past, but for that brief glorious time, Mother Nature seems to give us a tiny glimpse of hope that at the end of every difficult time, there can be a reward.

My mother always had a saying about this time of year. She would always say, “Spring is just around the corner!” It was her little way of greeting the new season with a childlike aspiration of starting fresh. In my own childhood, she attempted to instill the same wonder and joy of nature in my heart and mind. To that end, we had our own special ritual. Each year, she would drag me out to go look for spring. It wasn’t nearly as much of a chore or punishment as I made that sound, but as the years passed, it became more difficult to pretend the same innocent wonder that she was able to incite when I was 3 or 4 years old.

Magic often loses its power to awe when you see behind the curtain of how the trick works. As a child I was so excited to find the joy of those signs that spring had made an arrival and summer was on the way. My mother always miraculously knew just were to find it… Yes, I figured out that she had planted the crocus bulbs in that particular corner where they would “wake up” first. However, it never failed to impress me that we had managed to sneak up on the Printemps and catch her just waking from her long winter’s sleep.

Now, passing through some remarkably dreary winter times of my own this year, I wish that I could recapture that sense of discovery and glee at something so simple as a planted perennial. Perhaps it is also that I find myself approaching my own autumn that my mind turns so frequently to my younger days, or perhaps it is that the darkness of my own responsibilities has pushed me to flee to the time when I had none and could truly enjoy the world around me. Whatever the reason, I started noticing some of the little gifts of nature that signal renewal.

Living in the south has its benefits and its challenges, but there is nothing that quite compares to springtime in the south. The glory of redbuds with their almost lavender pink blossoms that coat the branches in beautiful pastel foam; the dogwood in white or pink that line subdivisions and the edge of wooded groves; the glorious riot of tulips and crocus in beds everywhere, and the fields of daffodils that line even interstates. It is as if the whole landscape is putting on taffeta and crepe accented by the faintest green that is only seen in spring. Lastly, the carpet of white and purple violets that most consider weeds reminds me of running and laughing in the days when I did such foolish things as running and laughing…

When did it become foolish? When did I lose the time and joy of just being and noticing?

So, today… I went looking for spring around the corner, and I thought I would share it with you…

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Resolving to Solve in a New Year

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New Year's Resolution

What is it about turning the page on the calendar that gives people the urge to make drastic changes in their lives? Is it the sense of renewal that a turning year brings that makes people believe they can erase the ignominy of the past year or past mistakes with changing the last digit of the annual sum? What happened to the positive points of that year? Do we keep it all, or should we erase the whole thing and go with the New Year as a completely new start?

The New Year is a time when people believe they can make a new start and make changes to their habits and behaviors in a positive way. It is, in a way, a representation of hope that things do change and that they can be better, that we do not have to accept the status quo and continue in old patterns of maladaptive behaviors forever. That being said, where did it all come from?

Apparently, this New Year’s resolving tradition has some seriously ancient roots. The Babylonians made promises to their deities every year to set their financial balances back to rights by paying back any debts of money or honor. The Romans made promises to Janus (yep, that’s where we get “January,” people) to start their year off on the right foot. Many other religious cultures have holidays of sacrifice and atonement (though not always falling on the western calendar New Year). So, the idea of making promises to change at the turn of the recognized year is not by any means a new tradition. That being said, the time frame for which we make our lofty, or not so lofty, goals for the coming annum should be recognized for the arbitrary thing that it is.

Our modern calendar is a great collaboration of historical conventions and narcissistic tendencies of various rulers, conquerors, and religious movements through the years. Science and fiscal convenience pretty much put the finishing touches with astronomical observations of solar year and figuring out how to balance the account of hours with appropriate counting of days. As it is, we still have to tack on the extra day every four years in February to make it all come out correctly. As our tiny blue planet does its wobbly little dance around our home star, it provides the circuit of time that provides a nice beginning and ending of that arbitrary temporal cycle that gives us a chance of renewal.

Almost half of the adults in America today make New Year’s resolutions. However, of that half, only about 12% actually make good on their promises. Sadly, only about half the people who make resolutions actually believe they will achieve the goals they set (possibly a contributing factor to that pitiful percentage that succeeds, but more on that later). Maybe it is a misunderstanding of what a resolution is? To dig into this, I decided that perhaps I should see if I could clarify matters of meaning. That word we keep using, I’m not sure it means what we think it means…

I’m going to pass over the musical references of progression from dissonance to consonance in a chord. An interesting sideline, and one that appeals to my heart, but not really illuminating for the chosen topic. We’ll also skip over the technical aspects of quality and acuity for digital media of the visual or auditory variety. The word resolution is the noun form of the verb to resolve. Not much help there. It also is a “state or quality of being resolute”… um, yeah. Ok, moving on. Being resolute means you are determined. Apparently, there are some people out there who missed that part, say about 88% of the people who make New Year’s resolutions, it seems. A resolution is also a course of action. Better. Maybe this is where we are all missing the boat, or rather where the boat is missing the destination and instead founders in the Sargaso of ill planned goals? So many people have ideas about things they want to change and positively no clue on how to go about it. Even if you know where you want to go, you need some plan for how to get there. So, finally, the last definition I want to address is that a resolution is “an explanation, as of a problem or a puzzle; a solution.” That is the best one I have seen so far. A resolution is a solution to a problem. However (and here I will listen for the groans and curses of the linguists), resolution looks like you are solving something over and over again, re-solving. Now, doing something again and again could be identified as practice, but it doesn’t always make perfect. Sometimes it does. It can also indicate if you are solving something over and over without satisfaction, that the approach may not be the best. It is possible that a different method might provide better results.

Overall, I still think I prefer the last definition. A resolution is a determined plan to solve a problem perceived in the current status of any given sector of our respective situations. We do not have to accept lack of total success as failure. It is just practice, and we can learn from the attempts.

Last but not least, making resolutions… As evidenced by the number of people who seem to lack confidence in their ability to reach their identified goals, and the actual number of people who let go of their resolutions sometime around February, perhaps there is a lack of skill or desire in making the promises of change to the New Year. In light of this potential problem, I’ve created a little instruction manual for making resolutions (and you don’t have to save them for the New Year as the steps are actually of the one-size-fits-any-date variety):

  • Identify the problem.
  • Identify what the solution to the problem might be.
  • Set a goal for the solution and visualize what the successful solution looks like.
  • Identify a realistic timeframe for the solution.
  • Think of it in terms of the present tense. Define the solution in positive, present tense, and concrete terms. I know this sounds strange, but think of it this way: If your solution or goal is for healthier living habits, saying “I’m going to start [eating better, exercising more, stop smoking],” your brain says “Great, let me know when you actually start!” Make your daily statement of resolve in a firmly determined way, “I am living a more healthy life by watching my portions” or “I am taking care of my body by exercising 30 minutes every day.”
  • Use visual cues and keep them before you every day. Pick positive images, because our brains gravitate towards the pleasant and avoid the unpleasant.
  • Identify steps and initial goals (and realistic timeframes) on the way to the ultimate solution that you can check off as you progress.
  • Reframe backsliding or relapse in a positive way as opportunity for learning. Missteps do not have to result in a plummet back to square one. They are a cue to refocus on the path to your goal.

So, this little ramble started out to be a pondering of what and why people make New Year’s resolutions. It did not end up where I thought it would. Maybe that is a lesson, too. A journey of change sometimes ends up at a different destination than originally expected, and that isn’t always bad. Sometimes the goal is not the end, and in truth, perhaps it shouldn’t be. Changes that we decide to make for ourselves should be a journey of discovery, and it is the small, measurable successes along the way that matter and will motivate us to continue on the road.