New Year’s Resolution
January: A chance to wipe the slate clean and start afresh; the perfect time to harness the energy of the new and to commit to all manner of ‘improve your life’ initiatives. Or so the media tells us. And to be fair, January does feel like a time when anything is possible and the mistakes of the past can be left behind.
Upon the clock striking midnight therefore goals are set and resolutions are made with abandon and not a little aspiration and hope: get fit, get thin, get a new job, get a pay rise, get organized, get rich, get a dog, get a tattoo, get a girlfriend, a boyfriend, a new haircut, get a new stamp in your passport. This is the year…
But what about giving instead of getting? What about focusing outwards, not inwards? Quite simply I’m sick to the back teeth of being told, at the start of each year, that I have to improve; do better; change. It’s true that there are many areas for improvement in my life (and body and temperament) but I have decided, this year, to take a more mindful approach to my New Year’s resolution and to ask “what can I give?”
My January: A chance to harness the energy of the new and commit to all manner of ‘improve the lives of others’ initiatives. I like the sound of that. As the midnight bells chime on New Year’s Eve 2018 I’d like to raise a glass and a toast that, because of me, the world is just that little bit more joyful than it was 12 months ago.
So this year I’m not going to start a diet that will be abandoned before Chinese New Year, I probably won’t get around to clearing out the drawers under my bed and I most certainly won’t manage to increase my rainy-day savings (given the current monsoon I may even have spent all my existing savings on building an ark!).
Instead, my resolution is this: to do just one charitable act each month; 12 small acts of generosity and kindness. I’ll buy the stranger behind me a coffee when I order mine and sponsor a friend engaged in a charitable endeavor. I’m going to volunteer at least once to help those in need and this month I’m going to search GIVE.asia to see who needs $50 more than I need it. I’m sure to think up other small ways of giving as the year rolls on. My only rule: don’t make the same charitable gesture or give to the same person more than once. That way I’ll spread my 12 acts as far and wide as I can.
And to be honest, in doing so I’m sure I’ll get a whole lot in return too (and, who knows, maybe just a little self-improvement might have been worked in me along the way!).
Lucy-Ann Dale
