Bring On The Serenity

by Sophie


RESOLUTIONS


I'm a fairly resolute person. I don't generally have a problem with following through. When I say I'm going to do something, I either do it or change my mind and choose a new path.

Sometimes, though, fate intervenes, and no amount of will in the world is enough to get me to my goal. When that happens, my frustration is boundless. It is my profound belief that sheer will should be enough in every single case. That wanting and working - the magic equation - should get you everything you want in life. And being denied pretty much enrages me.

For example, a while back I started the Hundred Pushups challenge with several of the Pens. I smile to remember that the folks over at Hundred Pushups had me convinced that I truly would be knocking out 100 pushups in a row by following their program for a few weeks. Turns out that by the second week I could not make the goal. It wasn't for lack of trying - I tried until my eyes nearly popped out of my head and sweat worked its way out of pores I didn't even know I had and I collapsed weeping on the carpet. But I didn't quit. I just waited a couple of days and tried again. And again. And so it went. It took 14 attempts over an entire month until I managed that day's goal, but I did it.

The next step took another month. No problem.

But then...oh then, one day, something Bad happened to my shoulder.

Now don't fret, y'all. I'll be okay. It's just fine and even kind of mend-y as long as I just don't do pushups. It's entirely likely it intends to heal right up if I give it half a chance. Only....there is now no way in heck I'm going to get to Hundred Pushup Nirvana. Why, by the time I'm able to do another pushup, I'll be lucky to be in the Three Pushup Club.

And that makes me insane. Remember my magic equation?

WANTING + WORKING = GOAL

...except when it doesn't.

All of this is a very long way of saying that this year's resolution has presented itself for my consideration: to accept the things I cannot change. (Yeah, yeah, it's lifted from elsewhere; if you know the source, consider yourself lucky and do your best to live it.) There are, I'm afraid, quite a few things that I have not been able to change in the last year, which show every indication of not allowing me to change them in the new year. I would love to stomp these things into a pulpy bloody mess, to blast them with death rays, to drown them in bottomless oceans, but instead it appears I am going to have to learn to live with them.

So, all right, danged shoulder....be that way, that stubborn pesky way that you are being. I bless you anyway. Thank you for connecting my arm to the rest of me.

There, how was that? Not terribly convincing? Ah well...there's another old saw some of y'all may know, that goes a li'l somethin like this:

Fake it 'til you make it.

So next time you see me, I'll be faking serenity with a vengeance. Who knows, sometime in '10 I might just manage a little of it for real.

***** THANK YOU, BIG GUY, FOR ALL MY BLESSINGS LARGE AND SMALL *****



Rachael and me last summer - I can't find our pushups picture, but arm wrestling is just as good!