As another year draws to a close, I find myself in familiar territory. Best & Worst lists abound, we're cranky and cold and at the mall, and we're stuck between dread and excitement about what next year will bring. Something, or perhaps everything, about winter makes a body tired and a mind uneasy. I think winter is trying to tell us something. As we struggle to find the right gifts, complaining about the unforgiving cold, the cold is telling us to seek shelter and warmth, to slow down rather than sprint to the finish line. Hibernating bears have the right idea: this is the time to think and rethink rather than act and react. When I think about this year, I feel a lot of different things. I have regrets, to be sure: withdrawing from graduate school, getting into a situation I should have known to avoid, letting certain people go and holding on too tightly to others. But I also have joys: I got promoted to a position at work which I really enjoy, I've made several new friends, I've spent a lot of time with my precious family and I've renewed my interest and involvement in musical endeavors. The trick to remembering is focusing as much on the good as on the bad, a task which seems inherently difficult for us human beings.
I have no idea what 2011 will bring, but I am more concerned about tomorrow anyway. When we make resolutions for a forthcoming year, we are robbing ourselves of what remains of this year; we are also usually fooling ourselves. For most of us, the act of formulating a list of resolutions is itself daunting and stressful; we worry that our lists are not long enough or ambitious enough, we find ourselves repeating goals we meant to reach this year. Whether we realize it or not, we are composing narratives of our failings, wish lists for a perfection that does not exist. I am not saying that we should stop trying to be better people; I am saying that one's efforts to do so should arise from an in medias res realization that one must, at that moment, be or do something more. This moment of realization will occur for different people at different times, most likely during times of crisis. Certainly none of us would put "Experience crisis which will make me a better person" on our resolution lists, and that is precisely why these lists are not very useful.
My advice for the seasonally disheartened, which includes myself, is to remember that we too have seasons. This winter, try not to worry too much about what you can't control (which is pretty much 90% of everything), forgive yourself and others for this year's faults and don't resolve to change the new year before it has a chance to change you.
