New Year’s Resolutions

One of my New Year’s resolutions for 2015 was to try different wines from California. I’m happy to say that I pretty much kept that resolution. It wasn’t difficult . . . smiles . . . Am drinking a Barefoot Merlot this evening to toast the new year. It’s a very smooth wine, and Barefoot wines were the big winner in my tastings this year, with Cupcake wines a close second.

I have a different sort of resolution for 2016: it’s about work. I figure I gave my company 150 or more free hours of work in 2015 by not taking my dinner breaks and eating at my desk while working.

That is going to change in the new year: I’m going to get up from my desk and have dinner in the cafeteria, and take the full hour.

Both of the aforementioned are easy resolutions to keep. There’s another that I would like to be able to keep, but it takes some effort. I got the idea from an article called Match Thyself, by Sarah B. Van Mater. Here’s a brief excerpt:

“One such thought distilled from the ancient Egyptian texts stands out particularly: “Match thyself” — that is, strive to equal in your everyday consciousness that which you already are in the heart of your being. This implies that when we endeavor to change ourselves, we are not seeking to conform to some outer standard whether of god or man; nor are we setting up objective goals for ourselves to reach. Rather, we are seeking to become in our personality that universal essence which we are in our inmost.”

Sounds easy, doesn’t it? But as Sarah says: “So often we emphasize the external forces, forgetting the internal.”

Especially as we get caught up in current affairs . . . i.e. news about ISIS, mass shooting in the United States.

It’s hard sometimes to respond with divinity in such an imperfect world, and I suppose the trials and tribulations we experience here are all part of some master plan on the stairway to nirvana.

Or maybe not.

Whatever the case may be, most of us have compassion and love embedded deep in our hearts — and how it came to be there is irrelevant. The idea is to bring that love out as much as possible in our daily lives, so that our external selves are a true reflection of our internal selves, the spirit, I think.

In short, I guess The Beatles summed it up pretty well with “All You Need Is Love.” No further explanation needed. Nothing spiritual. Nothing esoteric. Just brotherly/sisterly love.

Seems simple, right?

But it is the most difficult of all resolutions to keep — unless you are already a nun or a monk or something similar.

I’ll try. And I know Steve and others here will remind about it in the months to come, when I am afraid . . .

OK. Your turn.

What are your New Year’s Resolutions?

— Jillian