SPEAK … By the Spirit™ with Erica A. Hawthorne
The “Live with Purpose” Decree
© 2012 Erica A. Hawthorne
January 13, 2012
True confession: I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions. There was a time when what I like to call my “functional OCD” sent me into full detail mode over each section of my life to be re-purposed and newly “resolution-ed”. After two years of making detailed lists during the hype of the season and then lamenting over how many I didn’t achieve by March, I finally resolved to do my resolutions around the time of my birthday instead.
It felt more like a natural time of renewal and reawakening for me. Since my birthday also came in the Fall, there was a natural feeling of change that came along with the season. This seemed to help me take some of the pressure off and begin to approach it in a more humane way.
But I must admit (second confession), that this year, more than any other, I did want to make some solid commitments going into this bright new year…to enhance those I created around the time of my birthday.
I realized that I didn’t want to write mere resolutions that bartered with my will to make well-meaning, but sometimes easily abandoned things-to-do lists. I wanted to actually commit to the activities and mindsets that I had come to practice over the past year, and bring them more fully into the new year.
Writing this month for BTS around the topic of RESOLVE made me think. The word ‘resolve’ holds a kind of reverence when you say it. Just using the word ‘resolve’ makes anything you say sound so much more official and enduring. So I wrote my list and said each resolution out loud. The words seemed to hold much more weight and I felt as if I were writing an annual “Living with Purpose” decree! (more…)
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