Resolve

Staring down that long, steep slope

We gather round and we hold out hope

Because at the end of the rope

There’s a little more rope most times.

“Carlisle’s Haul”

-James McMurtry

One down.  Eleven to go.  Did January 2020 meet whatever expectations you created for it as you frittered away time during 2019's dying hours fabricating New Year's Resolutions?  If it did, good for you.  If if did not, congratulations on making it to February.  You can start over.  To borrow a line from the Moody Blues, "it all begins anew once more, it all begins anew." 

Perhaps resolutions would be less farcical and more substantial if we, the people who make them, set more realistic goals for ourselves.  I am not suggesting that we lower our expectations regarding what we resolve to accomplish.  Rather, we simply work a shorter, more compact time-frame. 

The importance of planning cannot be overstated.  "Failing to plan is planning to fail", sayeth the great John Wooden.  "Proper planning prevents piss poor performance", sayeth the equally great,  albeit significantly less well known, Hanklin Gonzales.  Both of them are right.  Yet, neither of them said - or even intimated - that at any particular point on time-space continuum must you attempt to plan every moment in your life going forward.  Regularly, people misapprehend the wisdom of their words. In so doing, pearls morph into millstones. We drown under their weight.  

Success in life (and if you woke up alive today then put today in the "success" pile) is entirely dependent on load management.  We crush ourselves under the weight of unrealized expectations, which themselves are often unrealistic.  

There is an excellent reason that in the little book of rules of life I wrote for my granddaughter Maggie, I included Rule Nine ("WIN TODAY").  It is the key to everything.  Not simply for her.  For you.  For me also.  

Learn to make this deal with yourself:  Do all you can to better yourself and the world in which you live every day.  At day's end, instead of dislocating your shoulder patting yourself on the back or inducing a concussion punching yourself in the face, simply acknowledge that you did all you could do. Nothing more.  Nothing less.  Go to sleep.  Get up the following morning and repeat the process. 

Spoiler alert! 

Some days are extraordinary.  These are the days when you get a new puppy, your child gets married, your grandchild is born.  These are days that you wish would last forever.  None of them shall.  Not a single one. 

Some days are brutal.  These are the days when a loved one dies, you get fired from your job, your home is destroyed by a natural disaster.  These are days that you wish would just go away and cease to exist.  None of them shall.  Not a single one. 

Whether today is extraordinary or brutal, you need to be mindful of the fact that at midnight tonight, wherever in the world you are, it ends.  Tomorrow?  As the old song says, tomorrow is indeed another day.  You bring into tomorrow everything you need to succeed in it. Just as you succeeded today. And yesterday.  And all the days before that.

Resolve is a beautiful thing.  When you resolve to not allow the enormity of your goals to blind you to the incremental progress you make on a daily basis towards attaining them, you have won.  You have won today.  

And at day's end, no one could have done any better. 

-AK