And so we come around again, to the beginning.  Another spiral around the sun.  It seems that these last few years have been filled with overwhelming anxiety and uncertainty.  So many things we always took for granted have become elusive.  Concerts, plays, a Broadway show, a night out dancing at the club, singing in a choir, dinner at a restaurant, gathering with loved ones; things we once did without thought have become a life and death calculation.  How do we thrive in such a reality?  This, more than ever, is the existential quest I am embarking on this year.  How do I maintain my connections to meaningful things in a divided world?  How do I give myself Grace and still push forward into thriving?  How do I attain a sense of well-being in all aspects of myself? 

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re doing something.
— Neil Gaiman

Photo credit: Giulia Bernardelli

This year, my main resolution will be to make mistakes, to try, to fail.   You don’t grow and achieve by being perfect.  This is not going to be the year I “fix” myself.  It’s not the year I finally get skinny, have everyone love me, attain all my financial goals, and have a perfect life free of stress and problems.  No, this is the year I acknowledge that I am not a substantially flawed individual who needs to endlessly work on and fix all of the shortcomings that society has pushed upon my consciousness as unforgivable.  This year, I am permitting myself to be flawed, imperfect, and human and love who I am anyway.

We spend January 1st walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives ... not looking for flaws but for potential.
— Ellen Goodman, writer

All of the meaning in this beautiful, precious, crazy world is in the doing.  In the failing.  In the getting muddy and the doing it ugly and the questing for growth. So this year I am only resolving to fail, to get muddy, to do it ugly, and to quest.  I resolve not to fix what I think is broken but to move forward to discover what all my broken pieces can do anyway.  I am not flawed, I am learning. 

This is the year I will stretch into my potential, not as a punishment for what I am not, but as a love song to all that I might be.

Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand and melting like a snowflake.
— Frances Bacon Sr.

Top photo credit: Frank Relle