That Time of Year

The perennial week of disappointment is upon us: a week into the new year, and have you stuck with your New Year's resolutions?

2012 has been a special year for me.  Finally at the age where one is fully in charge of determining what shape and form their lives will take; I was set on a path that was interesting and very rewarding, but ultimately didn't feel right. I decided to change courses, and finished my two year stint in the Israel Air Force. I felt that as much as I had been learning and growing from the experience, it was time to move on. I was released in November, and since then have been re-adjusting to life as a civilian, exploring new ideas and potential paths of life. 

I'd like to share with you some of my resolutions for 2013, which I have been making a strong effort to integrate into my everyday. 

1. Living in the present: I think we are all guilty of the opposite, living from weekend to weekend, biding our time till our next vacation. For me this vice manifests itself in the nostalgic desire for anywhere-else-but-here. In the summer I yearn for clouds and cold; in the winter I long for the careless ease of a warm night. This led me to overlook many facets of my life I was unsatisfied with, a kind of blindness of the present, only focusing on the idea of the future. 

Right now is the only moment guaranteed to you; right now is life.  So stop thinking about how great things will be in the future.  Stop dwelling on what did or didn’t happen in the past.  Learn to be in the ‘here and now’ and experience life as it’s happening.  Appreciate the world for the beauty and possibility that it holds in the moment. 

2. Valuing the lessons of failure: I am about to indulge in cliché, so bear with me for a moment. On the road to success, you will invariably make a mistake (or two). The important thing to remember is that if you’re not failing from time to time, you’re not trying hard enough and you’re not learning. Take risks, stumble, fall and then get up and try, try again. I am a self-diagnosed perfectionist. It eats me alive, I am so scared of ‘failure’ and the self-imposed imputation that I easily forget failure is a sign of something refreshingly positive: the fact that you are pushing yourself, learning, growing and improving. Significant achievements are almost always realized at the end of a long road of failures. One of these failures might be the missing link needed to actualize your next big achievement.

3. Compete against an earlier version of yourself, not others: This resolution has been crucial for me, and is an ongoing struggle. As a middle child, I wasted a lot of time in my adolescence comparing myself to my siblings, focusing on the traits they had that I lacked. This would bring me much anger and discontentment, as I felt I was in some way ‘deficient’. Again, this relates to the curse of deflection. I was too concerned by the fact that I wasn’t just like them, leading me to overlook many other talents I had been blessed with. I had a strong interest in photography, art, and writing, however somehow those skills didn’t seem important to me. This year I have fully embraced the differences separating me from my siblings, and now look for new and innovative ways to express my creativity. I appreciate my siblings, for who they are, and I allow them to inspire me, but I know that competing against them is a waste of time. You are in competition with one person and one person only – yourself. Compete to be the best you can be, against an older version of yourself.

So maybe this more closely resembles a positive to-do list for 2013 instead of the classic new years resolution style to 'eat healthier', but this list grounds me, reminding me of the steps I need to work on in order to live a more fulfilling, stable and satisfying life. Happy 2013 friends.