new year

It's officially 2016.

Although the other day I thought it was going to be 2013.

It was really chaotic work week. I was tired.

But thankfully I soon realized that it was NOT going to be 2013.

Every year, we make resolutions. I've never been huge on New Years as a holiday, mostly because I tend to be constantly taking stock of my life so I don't necessarily see it as something special. Most years I cobble together some sort of resolution, just so I have an answer when someone asks me about it.

This year, I started thinking about what I wanted to change in my life over Christmas.



I started off Christmas exceptionally stressed. I had been working so hard on so many things that I was just plain exhausted.

But then I realized something.

Trying to pour all your energy into 3 major life changes at the exact same time is not a sustainable way to live. It won't work. All it was doing was making me stressed as I continued to spin my wheels in the same exact spot. And all that stress was making me gain weight & break out, which was in turn increasing my stress further.

In short, it was untenable situation and something needed to give.

It dawned on me that I would need to pick just one thing to focus on going forward so I set about trying to decide which of the 3 things was going to be the first on deck, so to speak. But then I get stuck.

If I just focused on A, then B & C would worsen. I had to focus on B or else my life would fall into disarray. But if I stopped focusing on C, would I even be able to focus on A or B? At the same time, fixing A would theoretically fix B which would free up room to fix C. But A would take a long time and I really couldn't afford to just let B fall by the wayside in the mean time.

Around and around and around I went, still not making any progress.

Then something dawned on me.

There are people in much worse life situations that still find joy. And A, B, & C would all take some serious time to fix. I couldn't keep making myself miserable as I slowly worked through all three of these.

I had to find a way to enjoy life in the mean time. I didn't want to be happy. I wanted to be joyful.

So I started thinking about how to be joyful.

And something big hit me.

I'd stopped participating in my faith. Sure I went to church on Sunday but I sat there making a mental grocery list instead of paying attention. I didn't pray. I skimmed Bible passages occasionally. I never meditated anymore.

I remembered a conversation in college about how hard it is to not try and fix everything ourselves but instead to focus on God and at the same time, how only focusing on God will fix everything else in turn. The idea stuck with me and I made a decision.

This year, my resolution is not to focus on eating healthy or working out or being more social or anything.

This year, my resolution is to focus on God.

So no, I'm not focusing on A, B, or C at the moment. I haven't abandoned them. But they aren't my focus. My focus is on Jesus.

And to be honest I'm a little nervous about not focusing on everything else. I really am. It's scary to let go of something so big. But I'm also far more peaceful. I'm not the ball of stress that I was.

It will still take time. But it'll be time well spent.