New Year’s Day always make me melancholy. If you are like me, you love to grow and change. You love to improve and learn new things. I am constantly curious about new ideas, new books, and developing new skills. I do this year round without caring one whit for the calendar.
Then New Year’s Day circles around and even an overachiever like me can feel inadequate. I loathe resolutions. And, I hate the year in retrospect because it all feels inauthentic to how we live the other 364 days of the the year. I want to live a truly authentic life, so to me New Year’s Day feels cliche – like something is supposed to be different, but the only thing that changed is the calendar.
I admit that there is nothing wrong with taking stock, but why the 1st of January needs to be a talisman of change is lost on me. It is like we are all agreeing to some fiction that we were not enough the last year, so we have this arbitrary deadline to get it together this year. And, it is especially hard during the pandemic. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss is how the last two years have felt due to Covid. So, I choose to think more about taking stock each day.
In Ignatian spiritually, there is a spiritual practice called the “Examen,” which is a daily practice of retrospect and prayer. For me, this practice is a blessing because instead of feeling the tremendous pressure of getting your life “right” before the ball drops on New Year’s Eve, you make constant daily improvements. You look at your day – the good and bad – and you ask for God’s help and forgiveness. It is a daily practice of growth without the pressure of grandiose goals and feeling like a failure by January 15th.
All true change comes in small increments. Why not love yourself more by taking your personal growth one day at a time. This is how I intend to live each day. Progress, not perfection.
