Starting Again

I can’t remember the last time I made new year resolutions. So why am I doing it now?

It started with a conversation I had with a friend, in which she explained her resolution for the upcoming year. It’s a simple one: not to procrastinate on completing work that she takes home from the office. Her voice was full of excitement as she described how this would give her more time to spend with her partner and have fun on the weekends. What struck me wasn’t so much the resolution itself as her optimistic attitude.

After some reflection on the past year and the year ahead, I’ve made a few resolutions, including these two:

First, to spend fifteen minutes a day in meditation. Every day. I’ve been struggling a lot this fall with the loss of certain church-based spiritual practices that I found nourishing in years past. But I’ve decided that it’s time to take my spiritual health into my own hands and start anew with a small, dedicated, nonverbal practice that I can do wherever I am. I’ve been considering making such a commitment for the last few months, but kept hesitating, thinking that I didn’t really need it that much, or worse, that I would fail at maintaining such a practice.

Now something has shifted in me, so that I recognize that I do need to make consistent meditation a part of my daily life, and I am hopeful enough to get started.

Second, to spend fifteen minutes a day making art (drawing, painting, photographing, etc.) As I’ve written before, creating art makes me feel more alive, more tuned into the world around me, and closer to the sacred.

I was at my parent’s house earlier this month, and they asked me to move some of my high school artwork from one part of the house to another. Scattered around the house are some of my awesome-est paintings. And when I look at them I feel a mix of joy (ok, vanity even), but also sadness (”Why did I used to be so creative? How come I don’t make paintings like that anymore? Has my natural creativity faded?”)

On this trip, I went into the artwork that I rarely look at: old sketch books, paintings that never made it onto the walls, and other forgettable pieces. And as I looked at each one, I realized — it isn’t that I used to have some spark of creativity that has now mysteriously faded. It’s that I used to draw and paint every day. I made hundreds of sketches — and some of them are quite lackluster. But every so often, from hours with the brush, something incredible would emerge.

So fifteen minutes of making art every day and fifteen minutes of meditation.

I’m so excited to live out these resolutions that I’ve been practicing them early, getting ready for the new year. It’s actually been a lot harder than I thought — especially the art one. But I feel so full of hope for a more creative and spiritually-fulfilling year ahead, that I’m plowing ahead.

Why am I telling you all this, dear reader? Well, I caught the bug of change-making from a friend, and I’ve hoping that if you’re considering a change for the better in the year ahead, you’ll take heart and make that change too.