New Moment's Resolutions, Anyone?

It's almost new year's eve. 2023 turning slowly into 2024. New year resolutions abound. Gain some things, lose others. Preferably former towards more power, fame, success and fun and more. And, latter towards less weight, pain, anxiety and heartache, confusion, ignorance, and more. We don't really settle, do we? 

My former wife insists that I read the first chapter of the popular best seller Atomic Habits before we meet to talk about our youngest. You know the big idea: small habits can have a surprisingly powerful impact on your life. Our youngest is almost 13 years old now and he would benefit, oh so much, or so the belief goes, if he could make some new good habits and get rid of the bad ones like you know, too much screen time, too much gaming and binging on YouTube, and especially talking back to mom and dad and big bro and big sis and teachers, you know, authority figures in general, instead of simply going along with their reasonable requests and demands.

Can you blame her? It's tough to be a parent, especially a mom who cares so much, but also is a professional busy making money, having a career, and do that all in the new modern state we call "divorced."

Parents and kids -- an immortal question, as it were. But, you might ask, what is the question? How best to care for our younger ones? Or from the other side: how best to be a good kid? I remember the prospect of being a father for the first time (I have three not so little kids now). How do I figure out how to be a father? I remember pondering... It was a tough and one might say, an unfair question. Being a son to my father was natural and mostly smooth until I turned 14 or so. And then soon enough I was lucky enough to go off to a boarding school at the age of 15. If not, I suspect, we would have a lot more conflicts than we have had, which was almost none. Sounds idyllic. A lot of the credit also goes to my mom (and his wife for more than 55 years now). But, that's another story for another page.

Coming back to resolutions.. Have you ever had a resolution for the next month? Say, September or April? Or the next week? But, would you start on Monday, Sunday ,or Friday? How about for tomorrow? Any resolutions for tomorrow? Or today? Goethe famously said that the most valuable thing is today. How so? I would guess that he realized at some point that it is always today. So, we might as well resolve to live it well. And, that's what we intend for New Year's resolutions. We intend to start on Jan 1st. But, I would say that it's a cop out. It is so easy to push it to Jan 2nd or 3rd. They are still so fresh in the new year. But, what if you find yourself on Jan 10th? Or March 1st? Or, again, September 1st? Is it just an ordinary day to waste? It is not! Just because we don't see it as special as December 31st or January 1st, it doesn't mean that September 17th is not that special. Just remember, it is always today. That's when we are alive.

But, ponder a bit more, and you'll see that it's always now. The present moment. So, it's more accurate to say that we are alive now. And we better resolve to make the best of it. How? You might ask. And that would be a very good question. Maybe among the best.

Here is one pointer for the way: all pain is either remembered or anticipated. That wisdom was uttered just today by Byron Katie on her zoom call with close to 200 participants. Check out her wonderful book at your local library: Loving What Is. Or, listen to it as an audio book which is an even better as it has real conversations between Katie and folks like you and me. 

That pointer might seem like a simple fact to you or it might sound like nonsense. Which one is it? I remember the roofing accident that resulted in a badly broken and bent-out-of-shape ankle. And, I felt no pain at the moment of the impact that broke not just the bone of the lower leg, but also fractured the ankle joint. Yet, the pain did hit about 40 minutes later when the emergency respondents tried to stabilize it by wiggling it a bit. It's a long story, but, I do remember anticipating the pain as it rushed from the tips of the nerves in my ankle all the way to my head. It felt like a tsunami. And the moment of impact? I remember yelling out. Fortunately, they stopped wiggling it. And, I simply remembered the ten out of ten pain. 

So, my resolution for this year is to have such moments of clarity that many of us realize the truth of this simple statement: are we in pain now? No. We are remembering it or we are looking forward to it! And, the resolution for the present moment: stop looking forward to it. In fact, don't even need to stop. Just realize that's what the mind is doing now. And, that too shall pass.

Happy New Moments to us Everyone.