Make Small Resolutions (And Dream Big)

Happy New Year!

For those of you celebrating New Year’s at this time, perhaps your thoughts have drifted to the topic of new year’s resolutions or things you would like to change or continue to work toward. Perhaps your reflections have looked forward and back like Janus, the mythical king of early Rome who had two faces–one on the front of his head that looked forward and one on the back of his head that looked back (see link). Perhaps a combination of this double-looking, as well as time spent absorbing the present moments as they are has led you to a resolution or goal or continued commitment to something you’ve been practicing and aiming toward already.

Rather than new resolutions, I largely fall into the camp right now of continued perseverance with what is already on the go, perhaps with a few extra twists. I had the luxury of spending time over the past few days with friends at a cabin in the woods. I brought up the word conviviality in the context of a book I’ve been reading and enjoying. This led to a discussion of what the definition of conviviality actually is and one friend looking up the word on the dictionary on her mac laptop, to which she found: “[of an atmosphere or event] friendly, lively and enjoyable; [of a person] cheerful and friendly, jovial“. Another friend then summarized this as merriment. In my mental-emotional lexicon, I’ve held conviviality as involving nourishing time spent with excellent friends–perhaps over tasty food, drink, conversation, games–enjoyable, lively, friendly, and with lots of room also for the real challenges people face, including pain. Among those “resolutions” already on the go, I wish to continue to foster, celebrate, and inspire the spirit of conviviality.

You may have heard the expression, “go big or go home.” I want to emphasize here that there is nothing wrong with dreaming big. Indeed, dreaming big is something I whole-heartedly support. Nevertheless, I have been thinking about how sometimes people make new year’s resolutions that fall into the “go big” category, and of how sometimes the resolution’s largeness makes it too hard for the person to maintain, or even to begin: it’s largeness can be intimidating, even discouraging, and the person is not able to get their feet off the ground with it. It isn’t always this way, of course. Sometimes, going big works. Nevertheless, I’ve been revisiting the theme of valuing the small and thinking I would like to extend the invitation to myself and to you, to dream big, yes, and to make a “small resolution” that supports your dream; that is, to aim to make a small change first, then another small change, not a large one all at once.

As one example: perhaps you would like to get more exercise. Making a small resolution might be to commit to getting 5 more minutes of physical activity each day, which might mean walking to the end of the block or lane and back once or marching in front of the tv set on a few sets of commercials or walking up and down a few flights of stairs. It could mean making a goal of going to one fitness class per week instead of four, or swimming (or dancing, skating, running, snow shoeing, or anything else) two times per month. If you did any of these things, at the end of one year you would have either:

• gotten 1825 more minutes of physical activity, which equals almost 30.5 more hours simply by adding in 5 more minutes each day, or
• attended 48 fitness classes of your choosing minus 4 weeks over the year when you were unable to attend, or
• gone swimming, dancing, running etc 24 times over the year!

It seems to me that is significant. It counts. Not only that, if you are able to pick something small that is manageable, what you create is also something lasting–until you decide to make another change. Nothing has to be set in stone. We could take Stuart MacLean’s theme for the Vinyl Cafe here–”we may not be big, but we’re small”–and adjust it slightly to say, It may not be big, but it’s small. The small matters. It counts.

I preface this next bit by saying I have not yet read The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell; however, it is a book that was one among the collective travelling library my friends and I created while at the cabin; one of the people there had brought it along. While browsing it, I came across the following:

We need to prepare ourselves for the possibility that sometimes big changes follow from small events, and that sometimes these changes can happen very quickly. (p. 11)

This made me think of examples like deciding to go to an event or activity and meeting someone there who ends up becoming a lover, or life-long partner, or best friend; the relatively small event that led to the creation of you and me and each and every other person you see. If I am recalling correcting, Malcolm Gladwell writes that we are trained to think that big changes only come from big events yet this is not always so. Small events, small changes, small things can also have a significant impact.

Remembering that there is nothing wrong with dreaming big, or making big changes or goals per se, in the spirit of also valuing and honing in on the small, is there a small change or resolution you might have made or be making? I would love to hear about these–my curiosity and interest is primed–and I’d love for others to be able to hear as well. If you are comfortable, please do share by adding a comment following this post.

And so, at this time, I greet you...

This week, on the chalkboard, written four-hundred, ninety-four years ago:

And so, at this time, I greet you, not quite as the world sends greetings, but with profound esteem and the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and the shadows flee away.

~Fra Giovanni, Christmas Eve, 1513

Even People Who Impress Us Need Care. (What About the Others?)

The first portion of this title arrived in full form after visiting with my neighbour recently, a woman I described in last week’s post as someone who impresses me regularly. She impresses me, is impressive, and also is needing (and deserving) of care–just as we all are. From the visit and the title it evoked, I was reminded once again how everyone needs caring and how even those who impress us are needing of care. They are as flesh-and-blood as the next person, as me. They are as human, no less vulnerable overall, as fully needing of caring and love. (Have you ever thought someone else’s grass was greener–or snow whiter and lighter–and temporarily forgotten this?)

Then, though, what about the people who don’t impress us? What about the people who seem to repeatedly demonstrate lavish non-caring, who hurt others badly with apparently no conscience, who do terrible things? For me, a dilemma arises: they also need care but giving care can be extraordinarily hard.

I value caring and recognize the humanness in all of us, that you are as human, as vulnerable, and as wonder-full as myself, that we are different, yes, but not so different, and that no one is fundamentally worth more than another. I believe in this. Yet when someone does terrible things to another (and especially when there is no acknowledgment, honesty, and remorse), well, I find that hard. I do not feel deep caring easily or readily, if at all. I do not feel warmth. Typically, I feel very angry.

I am aware that the approaching holidays can evoke all sorts of things for people. It can be a time that stirs up very difficult or painful things. It can be a time that feels nourishing, exciting, uplifting, or fun. It can be a time that is confusing, exhausting, a roller-coaster ride mix of much.

In part, the holidays are a time where the value of caring is put centre stage (as well as consumerism by some etc). I feel much care toward and about many others. I do not feel warmly caring toward some–or caring at all. In some instances, I do not forgive. I may not be willing to offer caring directly (or to feel fully caring) and may not be willing to forgive, yet it can be experientially difficult to be mired in non-forgiveness and anger or caring-with-reservation without an option of something else to do (something that might offer a helpful focus or reprieve).

This week, I seemed to find a kind of workaround that allowed me to feel care with more integrity and without forgiveness, that held anger alongside truth, that honoured conviction, embraced generosity of spirit, and seemed to offer some ease of a load instead of the heavying of one. I prayed. Specifically, I prayed that those who have demonstrated non-caring, cruelty, and who have caused much hurt may heal–holding the belief here that in order to heal, a person must be honest. There is no other way. In these situations, persons would have to face honestly the non-caring (or blatant cruelty) they are doing or have done.

Even people who do not impress us need care. I believe this, too, though I do not condone terrible acts or believe if we are the ones who have been badly hurt, we have to give of ourselves to them as if nothing has transpired. This prayer was a way this week I could offer care without disparaging or losing myself.

As an aside, I also felt and expressed deep gratitude for all the caring that exists, for all the ways I have been offered care, and for the ways I have been able to give. I prayed that all those who offer caring (and have offered caring to me) may be deeply blessed and that I, too, may be a light and a blessing.

If these holidays are evoking difficult things for you or you find yourself in difficult circumstances, I offer you my warmest regards and encouragement. My hope is that you will find comfort, healing, solace–if not all at once, then bit by bit. If you find yourself feeling joyful, comfortable, okay, I offer you my warmest regards and encouragement, too. If you have hurt others badly or demonstrated a lot of non-care, may you heal.

Blessings and care to you.

t.

"We may not be big, but we're small."

That’s this week’s chalkboard post: We may not be big, but we’re small. It’s by STUART MCLEAN, Canadian story-teller extraordinaire. I highly recommend you check out his work. Here is a link: www.cbc.ca/vinylcafe/.

Previously on the Chalkboard: Doing What Is Possible, Creating Possibility

A friend of mine and her housemate have a chalkboard outside on their front porch that is situated near the street. The chalkboard is mounted roughly at eye-level to any average-adult-height people walking by. The words written on the board change from week to week and usually include an excerpt from a poem or other writing. I love the idea of this chalkboard and how it brings a bit of creativity to the street and commented one time that I might try to further the trend by having a similar feature at the front of my home as well. For some logistical reasons, I don’t as of yet so for now, I will satisfy this interest with a cyber-board and call the blog’s quote of the week space something like “On the Chalkboard” with a weekly (or so) rotation of collected words.

I was thinking that it would also be nice to have an archive of these, so I will also add the weekly quotes into blog entries that can easily be found by clicking on the “on the chalkboard” link at the right under categories.

The first quote of the week that aired on this blog was taken from a card I came across one evening in a card shop during the time that this blog was coming close to fruition. The card read: What is possible should be done right away. What is impossible might take a little longer. (See reference below.) As I mentioned in my first entry, this blog was born at a time when I was very depleted physically and emotionally. For some reason, this little card offered me a spark. It connected to a core inside of things I believe in and that have pulled me forward over and over again as I have stumbled and persevered along toward various visions and goals.

The task is to create possibility in the face of impossibility. I heard someone say this once many years ago and I have never forgotten. At the time, they were saying it to me in direct application to my life. It was my task to persevere when it all seemed quite impossible. I have done that with the help of others (known and unknown) and continue to aim in that direction. I have also been thinking about how this has become one cornerstone of my work helping others. There are many times when that’s what the people I am working with are doing, what I am doing, what we are doing–bit by tiny bit, creating and working to create possibility.

I realize I have a thing for this: I have a thing for the small. I also hold a kind of powerful knowing and belief that it is in the writing of one word, then one more word, then another that leads to the writing of a poem, an essay, a book; it is in the laying of one brick, the entry of one computer programming code, the planting of one seed, then the next that leads to the development of a larger whole.

One of my neighbours who is about 84, if I recall correctly, impresses me regularly. She’s out shoveling snow, out for daily walks, busy baking, growing food, praying. Early on, I sometimes experienced her as a bit more forward than what felt completely comfortable to me but I have since come to see her as quite amazing and lovely. One day, perhaps two summers ago when I was dealing with some significant and very stressful house problems –perhaps as the worst of it was coming to an end–we were outside and she put her hand on my shoulder and said to me in an encouraging, empathetic, and kind way, an Italian phrase that I did not understand. Then she translated, effectively saying, Rome wasn’t built in a day but brick by brick. Yes, I knew that was true and still know it deep in my heart–though sometimes I have wished something could be built or change or come about much faster, sometimes for myself as applied to my own life or circumstance and sometimes for someone else, for example, when they are experiencing so much hardship or suffering or stress.

So the little, beautiful card, made me think of all that–or conjured up one feeling or thought, that connected and conjured up another, that led me to tune in again to certain kinds of information and ideas, and so on.

The card with this blog’s first quote of the week comes from a Canadian owned and operated family business called “Heritage Gallery Designs” and the painting the card was based on is by Emily Filler. To explore these gems further, visit www.thegentlepath.com and www.emilyfiller.com.

Slow and Steady

Over the past few weeks, winter unofficially arrived in Kingston bringing with it much beauty and many moments to savour. I think here of:

• gorgeous flakes of snow falling, settling on lawns and open fields, glittering
• crisp, fresh air that feels amazing and contains a kind of vitality
• freezing rain that wrapped itself around and attached to, well, just about everything, which includes branches and fall berries–the ice encapsulating these as if to put them on display, catch our attention: look here, and here and here, isn’t this beautiful, isn’t this amazing? Yes.

However, the arrival of the snow brought other types of experiences, too. The combination of sidewalks covered by snow and ice with today’s milder temperatures created an effect somewhat akin to certain particularities of walking along a sand beach: one foot sets down then slides around a bit; next foot steps down, then slides around. Sometimes it feels as if you are taking one step forward, then sliding a quarter of a step back.

As I faced a similar phenomenon walking home tonight on sidewalks covered by slush, slow and steady is what came to mind–take one step with some sliding around and possibly some slipping back, then take the next. Slow and steady. Just keep stepping along bit and bit.

I did. The air felt great and I found that what initially felt like a far walk ended up feeling not so far when accompanied by the gentle step by step, bit by bit walking along, as well as accepting that today’s walk might take more time, include some slipping, and perhaps, also, some smaller steps.

Sing Your Song

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to listen with full and complete attention to the music album, Sing Your Song, by Canadian musician, Kat Goldman. I must say, I think the album is wonderful. For me, it fell into the category of right thing at the right time and I felt deeply moved by it. On the first listen through, I wept, at times, in response. The music imbues beauty and the kind of strength that you sense goes deep. The album art is also lovely with black and white images of Canadian women dancers taken from 1908 to 1948.

If you are at all curious, visit Kat's website at www.katgoldman.com. On it, you can listen to some full songs from the album, as well as samples of others. I would also direct your attention to her bio where it gives powerful context for the victory of this album, as well as of Kat's life as she spent two years going through numerous surgeries and learning how to walk again after a freak accident--all in the not so distant past.

Admittedly, I do not know much about Kat but in what I know and my own experience of her music, I think she is remarkable. I offer her my heartfelt thanks for being true to herself, for following this dream, and for sharing her music with the world. This is a gift.