My new year’s prayer

At this late time of the year, many may have already prepared their resolutions for the coming year – that list of things to do or stop doing, to better one’s self and life. I used to do that, too. Until many years ago, when I got fed up of making the same list over and over again, without much outcome.

I’ve stopped doing my New Year’s resolutions. It didn’t work for me. And how good it felt to have finally decided to drop something that had long been practiced but didn’t prove effective or doable at all! Perhaps it’s called New Year’s list because it is known to be upheld only on New Year’s Day. The enthusiasm about it is mostly lost by the second week of January.

Many people find making a New Year’s list to be quite a job. Following what’s on the list is another story, a different struggle altogether. So it doesn’t make sense to even attempt to start listing; it can’t be done anyway, either completing the list or implementing it.

Old habits die hard. Especially the bad ones we want to break. It takes more than just good intentions on our part to confront our bad practices. We often weaken just thinking about it. Then we procrastinate—we devise our own hindrance from doing what we know is the right thing to do.

If we really believe we need to change, why wait for the New Year? The New Year is just another point in time. If we really think that we need to do something necessary for our own enhancement, why not choose this time, this very moment, to do it?

A reason why we choose a future time for starting something important to us is because we want to dramatize the endeavor. To give it more magnitude, we would say. But, sometimes, we want to delay something because we subconsciously hope we might yet find an alibi for calling it off. We sometimes engage in mental dishonesty, thinking that we want to do something when, in fact, we dread it.

There are really no ideal conditions, no perfect moment. The only time we can be sure of is now. There will always be obstacles to challenge what we plan to do, yes; and we will better face them as they come, instead of fantasizing that problems will just go away if we give them time.

Instead of getting down to making a New Year’s list or resolution, I’ve chosen to look upward this time, in prayer, calling upon a power much greater than my own resolve. There’s a Biblical promise: “Ask and you shall be given.” I did, and I got an answer.

I was going through my usual yearend ritual last week, clearing out my documents chest of outdated papers, when I saw a small card inserted securely between the pages of a legal pamphlet. On the card was printed a very short prayer, but which I think fully reflected everyone’s quest for a full and satisfying life.

What could make life beautiful for us? Why are we not having it now? What do we need to do to be able to cross from enduring life to enjoying it? Our search for answers to these questions might also be called the search for serenity. And perhaps there’s nothing more to say about serenity than what I found in the Serenity Prayer.

Lord, grant me the serenity To accept the things I cannot change,

Acceptance doesn’t mean lying down for abuse or tolerating the intolerable. It does mean seeing things as they are and acknowledging that what is so, is indeed so. Acceptance doesn’t imply inevitable defeat, but a willful and bold decision.

There are many things in life we have no choice about: the parents we have, the country we were born in, our gender, and, sometimes, our neighbors. These are just a few basic examples. Some of us are doing jobs we don’t like or are sharing beds with spouses we no longer love.

Life isn’t fair. And if we are the one at the down side of the balance, we don’t need to add to our burden by agonizing. When it is apparent that no improvement in our situation is forthcoming and that there’s no way we can get out of it, the only change possible is in our attitude.  

The courage to change the things I can;

Courage is not always the kind of stuff depicted in the headline news or in the movies. The great majority of us won’t get the chance to plant the Philippine flag on Mt. Everest. Courage is not some dreamy-eyed, sentimental concept, but a deliberate decision to dirty our hands and sweat it out in order to survive the drudgery of everyday living.

A courageous man will not opt out of a task that he knows is his to do. To really believe that self-generated change is possible and to take responsibility for it and stop hiding behind excuses is courage, too.

And the wisdom to know the difference.

Let us always remember that “smart” and “right” are two different things. Overstating our credentials may get us a high-paying job, but the blurb may not be good for our own self-respect. Returning the extra change may cost us another trip to the store. But it will also make us feel good about ourselves, a return which is actually of much higher value.

We need to unlearn cherished tricks, if these muddle our exercise of righteous judgment. Wisdom entails openness to new ways of thinking, to new ways of looking at situations, at the world and at ourselves. Wisdom is a lifelong evolution of discernment, not a one-time spark of enlightenment.

Life is short. Every moment is so precious to be wasted away in wishful thinking and procrastination. Each of us has both the privilege and the responsibility for the kind of reality we want. We all have the right to hope, but we must not simply wait in idle anticipation.

We can stop dreaming and, instead, begin making our dreams come true. We can wait for the New Year, or we can start right now. We can strive to have more, to be more; or we can be content with what we already are, live with what we already have. And may the choices we make be the right ones. (E-MAIL: [email protected])