I’ll definitely keep the promises to myself in 2013.
The new year is a time when people reflect on the past, but more importantly look to the future. People make new year resolutions expecting the new year to bring good tidings. The excitement people feel about the new year comes from the hope that life might be better than in the previous year. I, too, invariably write down my New Year’s resolutions in my diary with hope for a better development in the coming year. My diary is already packed with my New Year’s resolutions, such hopes to stay away from alcohol, quit smoking, become more diligent… But actually, every new year I find myself making all kinds of resolutions but by the end of the year realize I was unable to fulfill them. It seems like this year’s resolutions are quite the same as last year’s.
It’s really such a shame; I’m always disappointed at the end of the year because nothing changed. This pattern directly reflects how hard it is to change one’s habits and become a better self.
I have encountered many books and video clips about success in the hope of being successful. There is a unifying attribute that every successful person has in common: they are tough on themselves. If they find themselves with bad habits, they immediately change them. Another similarity is that they never ever get lazy. And most of all, their thoughts always correspond with their actions. Ordinary people, like me, make a plan. ‘I’ll quit smoking.’ ‘I’ll read a book three hours every day this year.’ However, one out of ten people, if lucky, consistently converts such plans into actions. Letting go of your regular patterns and acting as a person who you’ve never been is extremely challenging. It is obvious that your life would have improved much more had you succeeded in achieving at least half of the New Year’s resolutions. But most people, including me, are only into making plans that fade away from memory within a month or two. If you read books about successful people, most of the time, you will discover that they are strict on themselves. According to them, they think they still need to further improve themselves even though they are already top, wealthy leaders, or a CEO of the enterprise. Then, what about an ordinary person like me…? Am I not even allowed to breathe in this world? Even a person like me – although I haven’t had a life that can be regarded successful – just settling, just with my life, but I never stop self-development while giving up sleeping time. It could, in some way, be perceived as masochism. But as they have been always craving for and consistently running towards a better improvement, they could have a life ten times, actually a hundred times better than ours. Why am I one of the ordinary people…? I apparently didn’t try as hard as they did, and I was just complaining about my life and the world, while they were absorbed in their work and earned money.
I, once again, take out my diary. I erase what’s been written and start writing again. The only New Year’s resolution for 2013 is to become strict on myself: my goal for this year is to work double or triple harder by pushing myself with ‘you need to improve more’, ‘you don’t need to sleep as much’, so on and so forth because I have been enough to myself. As I start putting it into action, I will, one day, become a sincerely-working man, like those successful people, who work a hundred times harder than the ordinary ones, won’t I? Such a New Year’s resolution sounds more realistic. So, my plan is to keep my only promise with myself and consistently act upon it out without other disturbing thoughts. I believe, in this way, my other bad habits would fade away naturally as times passes by.
It is said that if you are successful in changing one thing, it becomes easy to change the next thing. I also want to do my best and become a better person. Human beings have bad habits of sticking to what nature has been doing even though it turns out to be something foolish. I want to change that so I can live a wonderful and successful life, not only in 2013 but also in the years to follow. I want to live well with this strength – the strength of just wholeheartedly pushing a plan forward. No matter what happens, the strength of oneness in which you live in the present, not regret the past, not fear the future, and disregard yourself, that will be the best way to live.
I believe in that. I also believe in myself to live life to the fullest. I’m already looking forward to 2013 and thrilled with passion. Wouldn’t it better for you, too, to develop one solid conviction and push it forward, rather than making many difficult-to-keep New Year’s resolutions?
