New Words to Live By
Looking forward and back. Photo: Tanya Clarke 2022
Rather than making a list of New Year resolutions that are hard to fulfil, why not choose one or two words to live by instead?
Like many people, I'm doing Dry January this month. The first campaign for a post-Christmas sober 4 weeks began in 2013, driven by the UK organisation Alcohol Change.
I didn't make a purposeful decision about this. My husband said he wanted to stop drinking through January so in solidarity I said I would too. It didn't seem fair to be pouring myself a large glass of wine in the evening while my husband had a non-alcoholic beer. Somehow it just seemed wrong.
So believing my body is a temple, I now have what has become known in this house as a Joyless Gin & Tonic.
Take one glass.
Fill with ice.
Pour over tonic water (I like Fevertree).
Finish with a slice of lemon.
This wasn't our idea. My mum suggested it when she and her partner visited last year. Weirdly (I don't know why it should be weird) it's a pretty nice drink. Cool, refreshing with just the right amount of bubbles to feel good at five in the evening. Or is that the afternoon…?
All this talk about resolutions and I've no idea where they come from. A quick internet search and the consensus is the custom is much older than I'd thought. Ancient in fact. I learn that the Babylonians practised new year's resolutions some 4000 years ago.
“During a massive 12-day religious festival known as Akitu, the Babylonians crowned a new king or reaffirmed their loyalty to the reigning king. They also made promises to the gods to pay their debts and return any objects they had borrowed. These promises could be considered the forerunners of our New Year’s resolutions.”
Set Yourself Up For Success
Now I don't know about you, but the thought of making promises for a whole year has too much potential for failure. I think setting ourselves up for success, no matter how small, is better. Which is why I've started selecting a word or two for the new year that has some meaning. The Washington Post calls these 'nudge words'.
I like to call them 'Words to Live By'. As the WP describes, this thinking is less goal-oriented and more a reflection of how you would like to live your life in the coming year.
Last year I chose two words to live by INTENTION and LISTEN.
Reflecting on Last Year’s Words to Live By
I can absolutely say with hand on heart, it was a success. Sort of. Whereas a goal-oriented resolution can feel tight and restrictive, words to live by offers more freedom and space. Some would say it's a more philosophical approach.
I say ‘sort of’ because I still have work to do.
Living with Intention
For awhile I've wanted to write something longer than the very short stories I wrote during the first year of A Picture, A Story. I wasn't sure I had it in me. Yet I wanted to try. I used the 90-Day Novel by Alan Watt as my daily motivation.
Sometimes I didn't write for a few days. Sometimes I didn't write for a week. And then, call it guilt or determination, I hauled myself back on the writing train and picked up where I'd left off. It took me longer than 90 days but I got there in the end. I managed to write my first draft.
When I think about it, my intention wasn't so much to write a book but to start something and stick with it until the end. There were many days, especially around the middle when I wasn't sure where my story was going. There were many times when I forgot the names of minor characters and couldn't remember the timeline of their journey. Reading it through once I’d finished, I realised it wasn't as bad as I thought. Yes, it does get confusing and there are scenes that need cutting and others that still need to be written but there is definitely something there. More than anything it has a beginning, a middle and an end. I'd managed to satisfy my intention.
Trying Hard to Listen
Oh my. This was hard. I'm still practising. It's not easy. I thought I was a good listener but when my daughters' or husband say in frustration, "I haven't finished saying what I want to say!" or "You're not listening to me!" I know I have work still to do. LISTEN will follow me into 2023.
New Words to Live By
With a small drumroll I’d like to introduce my new words to live by: FOCUS and WONDER.
Focus
Much like my efforts of learning to listen well, I definitely could benefit from learning to see well too. With years of myopia, endless prescription changes, and new glasses and contact lenses behind me, I'm left wondering what having poor vision does to one's sense of self.
For myself, I withdrew into books. They were my world. The only world I could see clearly in a book held a few centimetres in front of my face.
I did love being outside, out on my bike riding with my friends, I also loved dancing and gymnastics but still, my young corneal lenses tightened year by year needing a higher diopter power of correction with each visit to the optician.
What I want for this year is to re-learn how to see, how to focus on the small things as well as looking out beyond to the bigger picture. This is both literal and metaphorical for me. I need to stop my habit of staring defocused not really looking at anything because I’ve become accustomed to not really being able to see at all.
I need to make a new habit. A new habit of relaxing my tiny eye muscles with regular distance vision.
I need to practise searching and looking and focusing which brings me neatly to my second word.
Wonder
Here's my thinking. By paying close, mindful attention to the world, by focusing on the here and now, the near and far, you see things. You find the wonder in the world. Beautiful things.
I'm lucky. Finding wonder where I live is easy. The dappled sunlight through the leaves of the temperate rainforest is something I get to see daily (unless it's raining of course). The local mountain beyond our house changes hourly, its own ecosystem creating fog, rain and snow.
I also try and notice other things. The grubby nose marks from our dog become brilliantly clear when the sun shines through the window in the morning. I love the way our cat joins us to watch tv in the evening. He comes in and plops down on the rug, rolling onto his side, his large belly spreading out like a soft heap of bread dough. I love the way the sunlight forms reflections through the windows of our house, sometimes rainbows on the wall through the double-glazed glass.
I photograph these things with a small camera I can hold in the palm of my hand. Sometimes I post them here.
It feels right FOCUS & WONDER. They go hand in hand.
Now it’s your turn.
What words to live by will you choose?
