At the start of each year, i like to think of my life as a blank page-- no history, all potential. whatever i draw or write on it becomes what i am.
Too often i am a hurried teenager eager to leave my mark on it. and alas, my undisciplined crayolas transgress the self set boundaries and my wayward ink ink smear its immaculateness. so instead of a beautiful picture, i see an unrestrained graffiti. and soon, smudged with frustration all over, i crumple the paper and toss it to the waste basket of broken dreams and resolutions. i don't know about you but i do that every year. i regularly receive, as it were, a new sheet of paper. and make a big mess of it each time.
But God is genius--and gracious.
He knows i cant live a perfect year, so He invented the new year to give me a chance to clean up my mess, to begin again.
Last new year's eve, i made a vow. i was optimistic i would be able to work it out this time. i made a promise i should chronicle events in my everyday life during the 365 days ahead. at least after the year is over, i could visit my past once in a while and really get to know the kind of person i am through the activities and the amount of time i spend through which activities.
a job well done is half done, so as the saying goes. my dream of chronicling important events in my life during the past year is still half done.
yesterday i stumbled one of my dusty diary and what i saw was too much for the conscience. i found that there are memories of which i was able to record, i forgot all about my journal. maybe, had i let some of my friend know about my resolve., i would have done my best just to prove to them that i am one person who can keep a promise.
Maybe!
but even then, trumpeting one's plans and resolve to materialize those plans is a risky business. it means holding oneself up for a possible public ridicule. we're bound, you see, to fall short of our own expectations of ourselves, either through weakness or neglect.
"it doesn't make sense to me," rues a friend of mine, "when people make resolutions year after year knowing that eventually they'd break them."
Oh, really?
For me, not to make resolutions would mean surrender or relegating myself to mediocrity. atop my pile of broken resolutions and empty diaries. i found that i would be none the better without them. i crave for a better future, a better me. i look forward to healing my wounded soul, to forgetting my failures. to junking empty achievements of the past. i long to start all over again with a clean slate. i yearn for renewal.
of course the coming of a new day gives me a feeling of renewal. but for some reason, the advent of January 1 brings with it a sense of divestment unique from that of December 31.
that's why until i've lived a perfect year, i'd wait with intense anticipation for the dawning of each new year. and that's why i make resolutions, year after year after year.
the new year is life's clean sheet of paper otherwise it is the psychological eraser that affords me the privilege of doing away with the blots and blunders in my life's masterpiece. whatever, it is God's creative and gracious way of giving me those countless opportunities to get rid of my mess.
and then, all is well again