New Year's Resolutions 2017

Photo by: Annie Spratt Photography

A year ago I made a few resolutions for 2016. You can read the whole thing in January 2016 as well as my follow-up in April, but suffice it to say I didn’t do a very good job of sticking to them. Briefly, they were to continue the purge of unnecessary things from my house, learn to play the piano and guitar, and finally to write more.

I don’t feel like I was overly successful with any of these, especially the musical ones. We continue to remove things from our home, but increasingly there are disagreements about what we can get rid of. I haven’t touched the piano but one of the Christmas presents I received was a computer program called Rocksmith to connect my electric guitar to my computer. It’s been a lot of fun so far. There are lessons, games, and songs to play along with and the computer gives instant feedback as to how you’re doing. I’m expecting the kids to want a guitar soon so that they can play the games too. As far as writing more, I definitely have been doing that. I find myself more often having conversations with friends about their own decluttering endeavors and feel like I’m making an impact on at least a few people.

Am I making new resolutions for 2017 then?

Yes and no.

The more I read about resolutions, the more I feel like I’m just setting myself up to feel guilty about no following through on something. I guess you could say I’m keeping my old resolutions to continue decluttering, write more, and learn some guitar but what I think we all really want is to just be better and happier people than we were last year.

I think I have a good idea of my faults. I’m probably unaware of some and my wife could likely add to the list if she wasn’t so nice. I know I’m impatient, probably not as thankful as I should be for things I have, and I constantly badger my family about having too much stuff laying around the house that they never seem to put away. I have searched around the internet for ideas and one list of resolutions resonated with me from CatholicStewardship.com. I’m going to adopt part their list of resolutions for this year.

1. Practice gratitude
   I try to be thankful for everything I have but I know I don’t always do a good job of showing others my appreciation.
2. Be present to others
   At some point, we’ve all probably stood there half listening while our spouse or kids are telling us something that is important to them as we scroll through Facebook or check our email.
3. Resist overwork
   I often place doing the dishes or cleaning above spending time with my kids because the mess drives me crazy. I need to remind myself that the mess will be there later.
4. Nurture friendships
   I have some great friends but I also have a lot of acquaintances that I could turn into great friends.
5. Consider living more simply
   This is one of the main goals and goes along with the decluttering. Additionally though, it means not accumulating from the start. Amazon Prime can be a dangerous thing, but it’s so damn convenient.
6. Get healthy
   I like to think that we eat relatively healthy in my house but I know I don’t get enough exercise.
7. Don’t give up
   This applies especially to the guitar. After complaining to my wife how my fingers hurt, I was getting a knot in my shoulder, and I am terrible at it she just said, “You’re not giving up already, are you?”. I realized I have only been at it on a consistent basis for about a week.
8. Turn to the Lord
   This wraps all of it up. Being thankful for what we have, for the people we have in our lives, and wanting to be a happier and healthier person for them. I can’t write it any better than they did on the International Catholic Stewardship Council website.

Ask the Lord for guidance, strength and perseverance in achieving your resolutions. In his letter to the Phillipians, Saint Paul writes: "I can do everything through Him who gives me strength" (Phil 4:13). If God is the center of our New Year's resolutions, they have a better chance for success.

Thanks for reading. Wish me luck and if you would like to see the full list of resolution ideas on CatholicStewardship.com you can check them out here.

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