LOOKING UP

Most of us make, or feel we should make, resolutions at the New Year for the coming year. Whether enthusiastically, or because we feel we should, we declare that the coming year will be better and we are going to make important changes.

Usually most of the Resolutions, like many good intentions, fall by the wayside. That lovely piece of Cake was calling your name, the new hairdo did not, in fact, change your life and soon daily life resumed its normal course.

If you are like me, you try again. On your Birthday, you tell yourself that a New Year is beginning for you. Time to make your Birthday Cake the last piece of Cake you eat until you have reached the (mythical) perfect weight. Time to promise yourself you will never let stress bother you again, you will make all of the changes you thought you would last New Years. A fresh start from today on. This is Day One of the rest of your (new and better) life.

Only one problem: It isn’t that by August, when my Birthday occurs, that New Years is over 8 months past and the next New Year is approaching faster than we think. The problem is that we all decide that a specific day of the week, month or year, will be the day we begin to change.

I suggest instead that we start to take every New Day more seriously. Why not today? Why not now?

Instead of waiting, and we all do wait, for ‘the perfect time’ to make the changes to our lives that we know we could, and probably should, Start Today, Start Now.

The First resolution should probably be to Look Up. Look Up at the Sky. Look up from your Phone or your Computer. Look Up and see where you are. Right now, this minute.

Next, look around at all of the things we take for granted because they are part of our regular daily environment. Look at the people around us.

Decide to notice something new today and every day. Smile more. Decide to be more appreciative of small kind gestures. In short, start to be thankful that you are alive.

It does not take a New Year’s resolution, or a Birthday or a special event to start to live more fully. Nevertheless like so many other things in life, you are the only one that can decide to change your life. Until you consciously resolve to make the changes they are not going to happen.

Whether the changes you decide to make are small ones or the larger ones (that you have promised yourself to attempt over and over again) makes no difference. It is taking the first step toward making each new day count that matters.

The Singer, Song Writer, Carole King already knew this by the time she wrote her song Beautiful in 1971. She said that when you get up every morning with a smile on your face, you will show the world that you have love in your heart. People will actually treat you better and you will quickly find, that you are really as Beautiful as you feel. 

Not only will you feel and look more beautiful, you will be happier. You will also be much more likely to start Looking Up and Out at many of the wonderful things you have been missing in the World around you.

You are the only one that can make your life better. You are the only one that can make ‘a frown turn upside down’ and become a Smile. When you do try, at least, to make each new dawn – a new dawn, you have a much better chance of ending up feeling that things are Looking Up because you are and they soon will be.

*Beautiful – by Carole King (1971)