New year resolutions? Bad idea.

So the first day of January 2016 is officially over. I packed my bags and maybe left some things behind but I'm in 2016.
 Phew!

So much for the New Year celebrations!

I have to admit though, as much as I tried to find one thing different about myself, something that was in me but is no longer there, or that I didn't have but now burns in me, I have found that there is no such thing as new year resolutions.
I waited through the first 24 hours of 2016 to see if there was going to be any spectacular change in the way I see life, in the way I do things, but instead all I see I ME, ME, and some more ME. There is nothing new, and as much as many would like to term it a "lack of determination", in my defence, I have to say that I have been down that road... a lot actually.

So I know exactly what I am saying.

Today, I want to talk about new year's resolutions. I know what you are thinking,
"The beginning of a new year is a good time to check ourselves for weaknesses and past mistakes. It's a good time to re-arrange our lives and try to adjust. It's a good time to start work on our resolutions and decisions, it's a good "fresh start" la-di-la-di-da!

Been there! Done that!

Now let me ask you some honest questions

1. How many resolutions did you make at the beginning of the just completed year?
2. How many of the resolutions you made at the beginning of last year did you follow through to the end?
3. How many actually worked for you positively?
4. How many of those resolutions ended up becoming bad habits?
5. How many do you regret today?
6. How many of them actually had a positive impact on your life?

Yea...
I thought so.

So here is Aurora's perspective today.

It is good to make resolutions. Hell! Resolutions are what help you make important decisions in your life. The hitch is, should we have to link resolutions to something as flimsy as a calendar change? What exactly is the impact of the calendar change on our lives, our destinies, and our futures that it should affect our resolutions? 

Is it the change of dates in a given time in history that matters or the events that occurred within that period? Some people only make resolutions on new year's eve, should resolutions be restricted to new year's Eve?

Resolutions are important parts of our lives. They guide our attitude and our decisions and in the long run, they may even affect not just how a year turns out, but how the rest of our lives turn out! So why make resolutions based on a calendar change?

Once, I asked someone when and how she knew she would become a paediatric doctor, and she answered me and said:

" When I was a little girl, my mother had a baby. The baby was sick once and the only health centre in the town did not have a doctor that specialised in the care of little bodies. The doctor they did have tried his best, but the baby died. My mother was unable to have another child and now after her death, I'm officially alone in the world. I have no living blood relatives. 

Perhaps if there was just one paediatrician in the hospital, my baby brother might have pulled through, and I would not be so alone!"

Now when I examined her reason for resolving to be a paediatric doctor, I understood why that resolution kept the fire burning. Even when she was broke, even when she had low grades in medical school, and even when she got frustrated. She didn't just become a doctor, she took her time to specialise in the care of children. 

She had a proper fire burning behind her actions, she didn't just wake up one day and write out a list of dos and don'ts for the new year.
This is not to say that it is wrong to make decisions on new years day, the question is; "what is the push behind that decision/resolution?" 

Is it something concrete like a life event, an emotion, or an experience? Or is it something as flimsy as saying " new year new system?"

A new system for a new year sounds cute, but what is wrong with the old system? Why do you need to edit it? It is whatever reason behind that "editing" that is the actual reason behind your resolution and when you take a good look at it, that decision is probably long overdue. Don't get it mixed up. The first of January is just another day, like any other day. It is not more ideal than the 12th of February or the 30th of June. It is just a day.

Making indiscriminate resolutions every year will only bring you a sense of failure and inadequacy at the end of the year if you go through the list of your achievements that year and realise that the year was more or less exactly like the previous ones. 

Holidays are hardly enough inspiration for life decisions, and if the 15th of October. Is the day of the big event or experience in your life, it would make sense to make your resolution on that day. It is not the day that makes resolutions, it's the resolution that makes the day.

"New year new me"

 is slang you should do away with because there is basically never going to be a new you. Just re-processed you. You of today are a by-product of you of yesterday so technically, it's still you. 

Making decisions is not a matter to be determined or handled by holidays, if it were so, you should change your voice, colour, race, friends, church, parents, community, job, spouse, and even children every year. If you would not change all of these people and things that surround you, why would you want to change "you"? Is it really that easy?

My perspective this morning is that resolutions can only have a meaningful impact on our lives if they are inspired by actual experiences and life events, maybe actual emotions and intuition too. Not something as flimsy as

"YAY!!! It's the first of January!"