Because once you accept the madness, once you stop trying to reform what cannot be reformed, you can pay attention to what isn’t mad.  Geneen Roth from Women, Food, and God

In past years, I would have completely abandoned my New Years resolutions already.  If I couldn’t start working on explicit resolutions on the first day of the year, I saw no point in making resolutions.  True to my neurotic tendancies, near the end of 2011, I  started brainstorming my goals for 2012, and I came up with a twelve tangible goals for myself.  Yet, the more I scrutinized my list of goals I began to get a foreboding sense that concrete goals weren’t the right approach for me this year. Adding another twelve somethings to check off my to-do list just seemed exhausting, unnecessary, and unhelpful.

I tend to be a slave to the all or nothing mentality.  I try to exert control over every malleable aspect of my life, and I’m struggling to understand that sometimes balance and happiness comes in the form of letting go, rather than clinging to control.  Resolutions are made to be broken, but this shouldn’t mean progress should be discounted.  Losing focus and deviating from expectations is normal, and it is human.  Setbacks shouldn’t completely derail the my motivation to achieve something.  I am happy to admit that this is something in my life that needs to change.   In 2012, I am taking making my resolutions a lot less seriously – kind of like a resolution to be a lot less serious.  I can’t continue to live in a state of existence where I expect everything to operate in accordance to my desires, so I came up with one resolution: to be less stressed.  My hope is to give myself space to breathe, evolve, and grow into the whoI was meant to be.

I exist in an atmosphere riddled with chronic stress.  Also, certain circumstances in my life have culminated in some a black hole of self-imposed drama, and somedays, I literally feel like my sanity is escaping me.  Plus, I am unabashedly overdramatic.  As a result, I spend a lot of time attempting to dictate my future, which is obviously impossible and a waste of time, and the bottom line is there isn’t a damn thing I can do except be cognizant of my reactions.  I have the ability to respond to any situation with a positive attitude and with understanding and acceptance.

If you can’t tell, I stress myself out a lot.  But, I wholeheartedly believe that stress is never necessary, and it does crazy things to the mind and body.  If I could learn to manage my stress and anxiety better, I know that I would be a better person, a more pleasant person, a more productive person, and a happier person.  I have an insatiable lust for life, but I let the inability to be perfect derive me of eons of contentment.  And that deprivation is evident throughout my life: it affects my relationship with food,  my relationships with family and friends, and my relationship with myself.  All too often, I let my own misgivings and expectations act as roadblocks to enjoying all the beautiful blessings I have in my life.

So this year, I am determined to let things be.  I will throw my unrelating passion into things that make me happy, and I will stop engaging in things that don’t excite me.  I will embrace my life for what is and what I can get out of it, and I will strive to learn what I want to get out of life.  I will stop trying to change things that are out of my control.  Because I yearn for a life that is fulfilling and intoxicating, and I want more of those moments when you can’t possibly imagine asking for anything more.

And all that being said, I have kept a list of my twelve goals because they are things that I honestly want to work towards, but if they don’t happen this year, I am okay with that.  I have to believe that I will do things when I am ready to do them, and I will challenge myself where I need to be challenged without holding asinine expectations above my own head.  I am ready to be the person I want to be and to embrace the person I am for exactly who I am, and I can’t do that when I’m a stressed-out anal nutcase.  So, in the English spirit, cheers to 2012, to all my friends who muddled through 2011 with me, and to beer because, well, just because.