New Year's Resolutions?

It is New Year's Eve and, according to the assortment of blogs that I follow, bloggers reflect on the joys and sorrows of the past year, or make resolutions for the upcoming year that will improve their future lives.

I actually have switched my thinking since I got sick. Sure I still have my big and little goals set up but I have a different sense of what is realistic now. I still want to lose weight and get my finances in order but I see it with a sense of moderation.  I used to be the kind of teenager who decided to learn a piano piece and worked very hard for several days and decided it was not perfect so what is the point in continuing working so hard. I would give up. I tended to not hand in homework because I wasn't finished but the truth is there would always be more to fix and I didn't grasp the concept of good enough. I think my new big life lesson is that where I am is great and doing "better" is wonderful. Who cares if it is perfect? What I do care about now is that I keep on moving, learning, and trying new things.

I embrace the concept of a "bucket list" but my list continually evolves with time, and I do not really expect to do everything that I might write on my list.

 In the first months post brain injury, while I was mainly restricted to lying in my bed, my daughter bought a movie to watch on my new laptop computer. The Bucket List with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman is the story of two men with very different life experiences who meet in a shared hospital room and wind up creating a shared list of things to do before they die. They proceed to carry out items from the list together. Their list included great activities like skydiving, great travels like going to the Taj Mahal, and great ambitions like "help a complete stranger for a common good".

My resolutions for 2013 - 

Be kind, find joy and be open to new adventures.

The trailer for the movie "The Bucket List".






Here is a really intereting "TED talk"  on the topic.