Resolving
I'm a few days late to hop on the resolution train, but really, tonight's as good a night as any - tomorrow I fly back out West and, as at the end of each calendar year, I'm drowning in waves of coulda-shoulda-woulda-why-the-hell-didn't-I-get-that-done-s. So let's look to the future instead, shall we?
I am only making two resolutions this year and they are going to be the same every year from now on because these are pretty much the two things that have always and will always be my Big Challenges. They're like asymptotes on a graph - always approaching but never quite reaching that beautiful round integer. Goals made for working toward, not for completing easily.
1. STEP UP.
2. STEP BACK.
(Were I using parallel structure I would pair up with down or forward with back but neither of those are as accurate as the [albeit literarily awkward] above pair.)
1. Step up. By nature I am risk averse. I am failure averse. I am prone to the creep of intertia as enabled by hesitancy and guilt. But once I take that first step toward something - anything - I'm pretty unstoppable. I need to take it more often. I need to lay myself on the line and put myself out there and give a big fat middle finger in the rearview to every lame inaction-excusing excuse I've ever made.
I've made a lot of great new friends this fall thanks to my job. But how many of them have I truly attempted to get to know? I've spent too much time at group gatherings observing people and wishing someone would start a conversation with me, occasionally jumping into the general group vibe before awkwardly backing out. You can get by with that but jeez it's cowardly. Jeez it's lazy. What the hell good does it do for anyone?
One of my friends sent out a quote from Maya Angelou via email earlier this fall, and it has really stuck with me.
People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
The responsibility is on me to step up and make those connections. Because I do care immensely about my friends, new and old. I just don't often enough express it and work to deepen my relationships. Things with Z are quite nice, but we'd both get so much more out of it if I took a little more initiative. And of course it cuts both ways, it's nice to be on the receiving end of social initiative, but I have got to stop counting on it and start creating it. You can't stop to think about your insecurities when you're really honestly openly engaging with another person. And that's the thing, in engaging with somebody, conversation isn't enough - you've got to be open, you've got to be sharing, too, not just firing questions and listening to replies. Why keep yourself bound up tight with fear and insecurity when you can open the doors and let a little light in?
I'm using social stuff as an example here, but this goes for pretty much everything in my life - work, friends, love, exercise, activism. I've been sliding by with a lot of Bs and B+s and what I want are As. No more of this bullshit wasting hours on the computer when I could be doing something. No more half-assing work stuff. No more pretending that walking up and down the stairs a few times counts as real exercise.
2. Step back. OK, so here's the flip side. I was watching a TV special with my dad the other night on Annie Liebovitz. I've always enjoyed her photography in Rolling Stone, and the program was a good one. The thing that's been running through my head for days, though, is this quote from one of her mentors, advice given at a time when she was manically snapping shots and exploding in every direction socially and professionally. Her mentor said, You've got to edit your work, Annie.
If there's a pie somewhere, anywhere, I want my finger in it. I've only got 10 of them and at Dartmouth there were many more than 10 pies and I just about exploded from the overwhelmingness of it, the desire to see it all and to capture a little piece of everything for myself. And there's nothing wrong with wanting to take it all in -
If you feel discouraged
That there's a lack of color here
Please don't worry lover
It's really bursting at the seems
Absorbing everything
The spectrum's A to Z
But at some point you have to have some boundaries and you have to winnow it all down. Quality always beats quantity. If I had my druthers I'd spend a little time every day on each of my favorite hobbies - reading, writing, cooking, music, drawing, painting, craftwork, sewing, conversation, etc - and time on progressive/activist projects and friends and family and everything else. This is, obviously, impossible. But I still feel guilty at the end of every day when I think about how little I accomplished and how much I want to do with my time.
So I'm going to try and work on that. I'm going to stop beating myself up for not Doing It All Every Single day and maybe in the process I will free up a little time for my passions when the mood (or the moral imperative) strikes.
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I'm starting to fall asleep at my keyboard, so I think that's my signal to wrap this up. Love to all of you and a new year that's going to be the best one yet!