Resolutions

It was you who picked the pieces up
When I was a broken soul
And glued me back together...

I don't want to hurt you...
I will not do it anymore...
- The Perishers "Sway"

I've been thinking a lot about New Year's Resolutions and how some of us might think that it's completely pointless to write down a list of things we want to do to improve our lives, when the chances of following through on them are next to non-existent. But maybe that says something about your strength of character. Resolutions shouldn't be meaningless, but often, they are. They're little wishes that we have --- things that we see in ourselves that we think we should correct because we can see the way we look in other people's eyes.

Whether it's losing weight or joining the gym or something more thoughtful like being nicer to our siblings, they're all ways in which we know we can improve as people.

After all, nobody's perfect.

Ben Franklin, ever the wise man, once said, "How few there are who have courage enough to own their own faults, or resolution enough to mend them."

So, maybe resolutions are more about finding the courage to make the changes necessary to make our lives fuller and more meaningful.

There's something about the aftermath of death that makes me reflective of my own life.

I think about the Tibetan book of living and dying, where it is written: "Bereavement can force you to look at your life directly, compelling you to find a purpose in it where there may not have been one before."

I've been reading more of Thomas Lynch's "The Undertaking" and there was something really interesting that he wrote about how the dead don't care; that a funeral and the rites associated with it are for the living; that we must view the body and put it under and look to the heavens to feel as though there was a proper end to the story of someone's life.

Some food for thought.