Happy New Year's 2012
Posted by hughrandle@gmail.com on January 1, 2012 at 10:35 AM
It is mid morning Sunday January 1, 2012 as I write this from Starbucks inside the mall where I am waiting to work my retail job today... it was a very short night as I spend the evening as a DJ for about 200 revelers at a local sports bar, watching soberly as people showed their own unique ways for bringing in the new year. I discovered that people watching is fun, a sport almost, and if I were a betting man, I could place wagers on the headaches and the cars that needed to be picked up this morning with decent accuracy. The forecast is for sharply colder temperatures and lake effect snow tonight and tomorrow. After a very mild, non-snowy start to our winter, a whitening of the fields will be a welcome sight. The weatherman says four to eight inches of snow may fall in the next 48 hours. I know that after work this afternoon, I will head home, with a healthy dinner ( it is after all a new year with new healthy lifestyle intentions) and a log or two for the fireplace. I will turn on the Christmas lights for probably the last time this season before the tree comes down on Wednesday and relax to some of the movies my kids got me for Christmas. Life is different than I expected this January 1st, but it is an opportunity for new beginnings and that, after spelling out the more pedestrian details of my New Years Eve/Day is what I want to write about today.
No, today is about what it means to plan a life change...to enhance your life to a point where your direction changes... For me after 45 years, it is a big ship to turn around. Bad habits, poor choices, and procrastination have put me where I am at. Wise choices, good habits and constant action, even if small, will turn the rudder of Hugh's life. It can turn y
our rudder too. A lot of people don't set New Years resolutions because they feel that they will last for a couple of weeks and then fade away... and true enough, sometimes that happens. The difference between a resolution and a life change, however, is the strategic, written planning that goes into life change. Without that vital step, your hopes and dreams for 2012 are just wishes in the wind, playing darts blindfolded, trying to hit a bullseye that keeps moving. Over the past several weeks, I have laid out my values, what I would walk an I-beam 500 feet above the ground for. I have set goals based on those values, and broken them down into bite sized actions. I have allowed in my mind that I will have setbacks, the trip through the fast food lane, the day without blogging, the wasted dollar. Just like the plane that left Los Angeles and found itself a degree or two off course for New York,however, I will not head all the way back to Los Angeles and start over, I will simply make a correction on my course. I have aggressively planned my life to fully grasp all that God has in store for me. I have Jeremiah 29:11 securely fastened in my head : " For I know the plans I have for you, plans not to harm you, but to give you a hope and a future." I know that I can stray from those plans through my poor choices...as I somewhat comedically posted on my Facebook account, my goal for 2012 is "nothing stupid". I think that there are far worse goals to aim for. Nothing stupid covers a lot of ground and allows for intelligent planning and performing. 2012 is less than 9 hours old...It is just a day on the calendar, but it is a new beginning for me.... I pray that it will be a new beginning for you.