Resolve to enjoy the ‘small things’

Like sands through the hourglass, these are the days of our lives …. I remember eating lunch at my grandparents’ house and hearing that well-known opening credit for the popular soap opera, Days of Our Lives, play on the little black-and-white TV in their kitchen.

Glancing up from my bowl of chicken noodle soup, I never understood what an hourglass had to do with all the yelling and embracing that I would see on the screen. The only thing I associated with an hourglass was from the Wizard of Oz and that movie scared me half to death (it still does a little bit).

But, as an adult, now I get it. The sand in the hourglass is time. We can’t get it back. As the new year begins, it causes me to reflect on this fact a little more than at other times of the year—and usually prompts me to pen a handful of New Year’s resolutions.

There is something about seeing the words written down that helps me focus clearly on whatever needs to happen to achieve those things.

Sometimes these resolutions can seem almost unattainable, such as exercising five days a week, while others are smaller missions that have nagged at me through the years, like cleaning out that junk drawer with receipts in it from 2004. By the time summer rolls around, a few of these resolutions have been achieved and checked off the list, but others have gone by the wayside.

I asked some colleagues if they had any New Year’s resolutions and I got a variety of responses. Does anything on here sound familiar?

  • My New Year’s resolution is to attend an 11-week “Biggest Loser” workshop sponsored by our wellness committee and, I hope, lose some pounds.
  • Pray every morning before I do anything else.
  • Keep in better touch with my long-distance friends.
  • Besides the usual—exercise more regularly and eat healthier—I resolve to make the time to do something I really enjoy—making stained glass.
  • My family budget will focus on experiences rather than things. This year we will go away for a vacation, take a class, and do things together. We want to look back at the end of 2014 and say what we did rather than what we bought.
  • I do not wait to New Year’s to make resolutions. I make them throughout the year.
  • I resolve to treat myself to something nice at least once a month—kids are older now and running around has slowed down—now it’s time for mom!
  • My New Year’s resolution is to walk (or do some type of exercise) five days a week and cut out all Diet Coke; this is going to be REALLY hard for me! I would also like to get involved in some type of volunteer work.
  • A quote for 2014 to live by, from Ralph Waldo Emerson. ”Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” I don’t make resolutions!
  • My New Year’s Resolution is to be more thankful, to reflect on all the great everyday activities of life.

I guess, in the final analysis, that disappearing hourglass sand really should affect how we view resolutions. Well, not just resolutions, but resolve itself. So whether you make resolutions or not, keep them, break them, or achieve them, resolve to take pleasure in each day. Be sure especially to enjoy even the seemingly small moments in life that we all have a tendency to overlook.

And let us know about your New Year’s resolutions!

By Melissa Kindall
Social Media and Special Communications Project Manager
Corporate Communications & Public Relations

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