Talking ‘bout a Resolution

A few years back I made a resolution that stuck, I resolved to NOT make any more New Year’s resolutions. Best dang resolution I ever made!

I find it increasingly ridiculous that we as a collective global society resolve to tackle personal challenges for which we have no resolve. Worse, is that we need a new calendar to jump start our initiatives. By February we can toss off all of the grand plans as we flip the page to a new month blaming our lack of resolve on a New Year’s Day hangover. “Oh, that was just the champagne talking.”

You need a little more at stake to make life changing choices than merely hopping to a new annum, more than drunken pledges. You need dreams. You’ve got to be able to dream what it would be like to cross that “one” off of your life list. You need FIRE, baby!

“Dreams die hard/ and we watch them erode/ but we can not be denied/ the fire inside.” - Bob Seger

This is just me, but I’ve found that you need to be less definitive in desired outcomes. Choose a dream and set out on a journey. Make many stops along the way, know that sometimes you must backtrack, detours are not roadblocks, simply side trips. There are few of us who can set a stopwatch on achievement. If you want to try something, try, that’s it. Try - no more, no less. You are not too old, you are not too anything. Set yourself up on the road to wherever it is you want to go and let the rest of your life get in the way. So what? Reposition and continue to move forward.

This is the chorus to the first song I wrote, “Unlock The Music.”

I’ve got a thousand songs inside me
Dying to come out
An old guitar beside me
I’m trying to figure out
I’m going to learn to sing and play
I’ve made this conscious choice
To unlock the music that’s inside
And give these songs a voice

It’s not much, pretty darn simple and step one on a new path. I waited until my mid-forties to address my fire inside. Now I’m just chasing sparklers down the trail to see where the fire is going to take me.

Perhaps 2010 will be your year to set out and unlock your music. Godspeed on your travels.

*****
While we’re on fire I should address 2009. What a year! Renee had that other fire burning. There were some other things going on around here but let’s face it, addressing that issue was the major theme throughout. It overshadowed everything else. It is the 800 pound gorilla in the room and oh, how we love monkeys! We did our best, with the help of surgeons and a whole host of medical personnel, to extinguish the flame. Still it smolders. Mid-January we’ll take another trip to Cleveland to investigate the pain and discomfort that continues to poke at her insides.

Resolve means a little more around here than getting in shape. Hey, I’m already in shape. It may not be the shape I want but it is a shape. Resolve is also more than giving up bad habits, of which I have none. Renee thinks differently, just ask her, she’ll tell you, but that’s just a women’s inherent desire to change a man into something he can never become. You see, around here resolve means survival. Resolve means getting up every darn day and facing whatever this life throws at you. Many of you had a rough year. You know what I’m talking about. Thanks for hanging tough.

So, we don’t need no stinking resolutions. We’ve got resolve and we approach 2010 resolutely.

Happy New Year!