Big, Fun and Scary 2012

I’ve written quite a lot about my self critical nature and how negatively it affects everything I do.  How it leads to negative self appraisal and subsequent feelings of depression, how it affects my view of my place in the world, how it leads me to judge all of my accomplishments as not good enough and especially how it affects not only my writing itself but the entire process therein.   I’ve also written about the moments that have occurred wherein I was able to rise above that critical voice and actually fully inhabit whatever activity I was engaged in.  There have been many of those moments this past year and they’ve led me to believe that I am, if I choose to be, in transition to becoming something other than what I have been.

Which is why I am setting one single goal for myself this coming year: to accept.  To accept myself as I am without thinking about what I should be.  To accept my life as it is without bemoaning the lack of things or events I think I’m supposed to have or experience.  To accept my activities as they are and not invalidate them as not enough.  To fully inhabit myself and my life without constantly comparing everything to something else.  Acceptance.  The kind of deeply fulfilling feeling one gets from knowing- in one's soul- that they are exactly what and where they're supposed to be without any qualifiers or caveats.  That is my goal.

Now, they say that you’re less likely to achieve your goals if you don’t set any for yourself so you may be wondering how this emphasis on acceptance will lead me to accomplish any of my goals in the coming year.  Well, I’ll tell you.  Accepting myself will, I hope and believe, lead me to write not out of guilt but out of an honest desire to write.  It will lead me to begin editing my novel with an appreciation for all the intricacies of editing rather than a bulldozer-like desire to rid my manuscript of everything I judge to be wrong with it.  It will lead me to read more due to an honest love of the written word rather than a sense of obligation.  It will lead me to teach myself how to paint without looking at all the brilliant artists out there who are so much more talented than I am and finding my fledgling attempts lacking.  It will lead me to pursue my own personal goals in martial arts without judging myself against those more limber, stronger, or faster than I.  It will lead me to investigate the world I live in without constantly marking my progress- or perceived lack thereof- against some ridiculous benchmark that has absolutely no bearing on my life, anyway.  Acceptance will blanket every facet of my existence and lead me to think and do differently.  Better, hopefully.  But most certainty differently.

And that’s why there’s only one goal- cause it’s a mighty big one.  My work on this and my progress following will be frequent topics of exploration here in my writing so hopefully there will be evidence beyond my own internal thought process to further validate this goal and its effect on everything I do.  I hope that any readers who may come by to read these topics of discussion will find them to be worthwhile.  But even if not, this is my personal goal for my life- it matters more to me than anyone else.  But I will say that my understanding of this whole self-discovery thing leads me to believe that it will have a much larger ripple effect than I can see from here.

Happy New Year.