check your horizon
If you’re anything like me, your January has gone something like this.
Week 1: Filled with wild joy and optimism left over from the festive season. Being on holidays helps. Enthusiastically think up New Year’s Resolutions. Mine from a previous year included: (1) Write in diary EVERY day (this lasted 3 days); (2) Exercise 3x a week (maybe not); (3) do not get cranky with kids (on good days perhaps) and (4) sort out finances (pass).
Week 2: Was unable to think of any resolutions for this year, so switched to a ’30 day Challenge’. Think of a simple thing you’d like to do and one that you’d like not to do. Do them each day for 30 days. Then change the challenge. Easy. I picked: do a short yoga stretch each morning and don’t eat cake in January. I am proud to say that I successfully followed the 30 day plan for 3 whole days! Then it was my birthday, I felt tired, did not stretch and also ate cake.
Week 3: The happy bubble of Christmas and New Year has definitely burst. Return to work and school looms. I feel a bit like a rat in a cage.
But I liked the happy bubble, so how do I keep some bubbles up my sleeve during the year to come? Given my astonishing lack of perseverance with New Year’s Resolutions and 30 day Challenges, I’m going to try something new this year. I’m going to find a quote or two that will be my little jar of bubbles to carry in my pocket during the year.
I found them in the world of music. The first is a song line from the band Avicii. ‘One day you’ll leave this world behind, so live a life you will remember.’ I heard my 9 year old singing this one day, and the phrase quite stopped me in my tracks.
The second is from the wonderfully wicked Tim Minchin (think Matilda the Musical, Come home Cardinal Pell, and Californication). He suggested that while it is great to have goals in your life that you work towards, you should always keep your eye on the horizon for it is here that the unexpected opportunities lie that might change your life.
So as January rolls by, I have happily let go my resolutions and challenges. I have a song in my pocket and my eye on the horizon. Bring on the bubbles!