**Won't you please share the joy of WYFP by recommending?
Last week's WYFP was on Christmas Eve, and this one's on New Year's Eve!
I'm gonna make some New Year's resolutions here... but I'm gonna preface that by saying I don't believe in New Year's resolutions. I wrote a diary over on Street Prophets that describes my skepticism toward the rolling over of the year. It's just another day, y'know?
And then there's my justified self-doubt: I have all sorts of good intentions, but I'm really, really, really bad at following through on resolutions. And honestly, I think sometimes the things I intend to do wind up not being the right or important things to do. My sense of what works is this: to internalize as truth the principle through which change will happen, and practicing it "religiously." The motivation must become not ambition or selfishness, but love. "As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the truth of the work itself,"
wrote the social and peace activist and Trappist monk Thomas Merton. It seems to me that this applies as well to losing weight and exercising and finally writing your memoirs as it does to activism and charity.
"Writers write," as they say: if you call yourself a writer, then necessarily you write, because that is who you are in truth, someone who writes--and if not, you're a hypocrite. Don't just be someone who jogs; be an athlete. Or someone who diets; be a health nut. Or someone who writes their congresscritter; be an activist. Or, heck, don't be someone who prays, but be someone with a religious vocation, even if that doesn't mean being a monk.
Whatever it is, I don't think you need to tell anybody, you just have to live it. And eventually people may start to notice that you're not just someone who jogs, but that you are in your own right an athlete. That's what someone who successfully keeps their New Year's resolution to exercise 3 times a week becomes!
But like I said, I'm not a good spokesperson for keeping resolutions... perpetually "resolving" to do things that intellectually seem like a good idea, but that I don't love and have no faith in and no particular plan for how to accomplish. I asked some friends if they'd made New Year's resolutions in the past which they'd kept, and got this excellent response from SanDiegoDem (aka Bobina): "It's just like disciplining your kids. Don't threaten them with a punishment that you can't keep. No false promises. So don't make grandiose resolutions or overly vague ones. More than resolutions, they are tasks to accomplish with clearly outlined steps to take to reach them, otherwise you overwhelm yourself."
Elizabeth D's New Year's Resolutions:
To deal with my FPs gracefully and diligently,
To help others with their FPs as I am able, and
Not to be the FP.
Okay, so they're a little vague... but I feel hopeful about them, and I see truth in them. This question about how we deal with our effing problems has come to mean something to me.
With a full heart, I want to thank everybody who shares themselves and brings WYFP to life every Saturday evening. I wish you all a very happy and blessed new year!
And P.S. Last week Vallon posted that he'd recently been kicked out of his parents' house and was making a rocky start in a bare apartment in a new city. Several folks donated some cash and help, and yesterday he posted a diary with an update and a thank you. My thanks too, to those who helped Vallon out, and good luck to him as he searches for work!
