Though I feel that making resolutions is an invitation to fail, I made some again this year.

Thursday, January 11, 2001

Though I feel that making resolutions is an invitation to fail, I made some again this year. However, I’ve learned a trick or two over the years – make resolutions that stretch you, but are not impossible.

My resolution this year is to find more balance more often. That’s a tall order for me, but I plan to take many steps to achieving my goal. Sure, I can eat better and exercise more, but I think that there’s more to it than that.

First, I love, I mean LOVE to take long walks. Nothing makes me happier than to get out in nature and just think. Taking walks helps me to clear my head and get in touch with nature. And just being in nature usually helps me to at least feel more balanced. So, I hope to find time to take a long walk at least three to four times a week. Although with the piles of snow covering some sidewalks, I may have to sit at home and eat Keebler marshmallow puffs for another few weeks. My bad?

Second, I want to learn to meditate. Yes, it sounds totally new-agey, but I truly feel that there is a purpose to practicing this art. My mind is always racing. I am a person who finds it nearly impossible to stop and just do nothing. To date my attempts at meditation have consisted of breathing, some relaxation and then a free-association session covering movies, books and people in my life to rival the longest Faulkner prose.

So, in really, actually, finally learning meditation I hope to be able to open my mind and rest it from the hamster wheel it is usually on. We’ll see how it goes.

Another resolution I’ve made is one that I noticed that Mark Bjorlie of the YMCA made as well: to play more. I want to play more, hopefully in a way that is non-destructive and childlike. I don’t know how or when, but maybe it’s time to buy Gak, Slime or Play-doh from a local department store. Or maybe I just need to spend more time with children or some really immature adults.

More than anything, I just want to be true to myself this year. I think that that above anything else will help me to find balance. If I feel like saying something truthful, I hope that I will. If I don’t want to do something, I hope that I’ll say so. If I can’t handle any more of a load, I hope that I’ll say "uncle." And in each case, I hope not to regret the decisions I make and how I express my views.

And if at the end of the year I’m not any more balanced than I am at this point, I hope that at least I will have grown by learning why finding balance is so hard for me to do. Maybe searching for it makes it stay out of my reach and I should just learn to let it come to me unsolicited.

After all, at the moments when I believe that I found balance in the past, I was having such a great time and feeling so good that I didn’t notice how peaceful things were. Hopefully I’ll recognize the feeling and enjoy the moments when they arrive in 2001, instead of yearning for them when they’ve drifted away.

Hopefully.

Kevira Mertha’s column appears Wednesdays.