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Regrets and Resolutions
New Year’s resolutions in a different light.
I just assumed I would climb Mt Everest. I would float down the Amazon River in a canoe and probably join the French Foreign Legion. Dreams such as these spring from our youth and some of us carry them deep into adulthood before releasing our grasp on them or letting them release the hold they have on us.
We go to college. We get married. We have careers and retire. Children and grandchildren. It’s what I did and it’s not a bad life. But it’s not climbing Everest either.
We carry regrets for those things left undone and sometimes those regrets actually influence our practice of making New Year’s resolutions.
Yes, it’s that time of the year for some of us to make resolutions and some of us to swear we never make resolutions. Some of us make them but never tell anyone. And many of those resolutions stem from regrets. At the end of each year we tend to look back and realize we did not lose the twenty pounds we resolved to a short 365 days before. We didn’t run that marathon. Our efforts to organize and improve our lives probably fell short and the career goals we resolved to meet may or may not have been achieved. So, we make new resolutions. New ideas and ways to improve our future.