New Year's Resolution

I have many resolutions, many goals and aspirations for myself.  However, I often find that I get exited about the "new" thing that I am doing and will slowly let the project die as the excitement wanes. This is usually because I was too ambitious in the beginning.

Having embraced a more "live in each moment" attitude, not depending so much on the future perfect me, I have decided that I am not going to make a new year's resolution. Instead, I am going to make a today resolution. What am I going to do today that will making me healthier, holier and more loving to those around me? I am going to renew this question everyday.  I want kindness, generosity, and loving sacrifice to be my normal way of being.  However, thinking about it and writing about virtues, will not change my rough edges or transform all my selfishness. Transformation occurs almost invisibly through daily effort. 

My life plan is to do the Will of God and to become holy. However, the Will of God isn't always clear and holiness is difficult. While this is the point of my life, holiness is vague, overwhelming and prompts many questions. It needs to be broken down. I think three categories suffice.

1) Mental and bodily health
2) Prayer
3) Love of neighbor

The first, is health. My body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. It is necessary that I take care of it for Him. He needs a pure, clean place to dwell in not a filthy or unstable place.  If I am not healthy and if I don't take care of myself, I am wasting graces and can not adequately serve God and my neighbor. How can I love my neighbor as myself, if I don't love myself?

The second is prayer.  It is impossible to love God if I do not know Him. Prayer is the key to establishing a relationship with Him. Like all relationships, the relationship I have with God is not static, it is always developing or if I "ignore" Him the relationship is weakened.

The third is love of neighbor. If I claim to love God but have no love of neighbor, I am a hypocrite. These two loves go together.

With these three categories in mind, I am going to chose an activity daily that will increase at least one of them. The activities are going to be simple and manageable. Maybe one day, I'll forgo a soda and drink water instead. Maybe I will spend ten extra minutes in prayer. Maybe, I will take out the trash when it is not my turn. Regardless of what the activity is, I am going to make sure that I go out of my way today to improve. I have to be the best me today -- whatever that entails, because maybe today is all that I have.