Every New Year seems to be a fresh start, but the implementation of that 'fresh start' is usually quite difficult because we have our baggage from all the previous years skewing that so-called self renewal. However, something fascinating that I read in book titled The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before you Die by John Izzo is that we can't change everything that we've identified needing changed at once. Despite our constant attempts being jacks of all trades and masters of none with our multi-tasking everything, we can't truly improve many things at once effectively. Also, goals rarely get the job done as well as simply tuning your mind to what you want changed by a constant presence, ie, mindset change. This insight actually thrills me because I'm really tired of failing my New Year's Resolutions.
Instead, I am going for a complete mindset change by immersing it with my life. Dr. Izzo suggests writing the change on a card where you have to see it a lot, so I decided to put "become love" as a henna tattoo on my arm where I can always see it.
Become love? At first I thought that seemed really sappy or unrealistic. However, this is a strictly interpersonal adjustment where I stop assuming the worst out of people. That most certainly does not mean to be naive, but it's a change in response to people around me, forcing me to drop my defense barriers and not make assumptions why people decide what they do, even if it negatively impacts me. I guess another way to explain it is that I want to not take things personally to the point where my cognitive skills are taken over by blinded hurt and subsequent defensiveness. I believe this will make me much less brittle as a person and more understanding of people and relationships with people as a whole.
