Pathwalking 105
Around the world today people are celebrating the New Year.
Why is this significant? What does it mean? What way, if any, does this effect Pathwalking?
Let’s break this down to its very core. New is unfamiliar, a start, an origin. Year is an easily marked measure of linear time. New Year’s implies a time of rebirth, renewal, and new beginnings. Its very name speaks plainly of a fresh space in time.
As much as many fear change, people are constantly looking for an acceptable space for it to happen. A new year is a chance to hit the reset button, to start out in a previously untaken direction, a time to begin again. This is the time when change can be made, the world expects it.
That is where, I believe, New Year’s resolutions come in. This is why they are so popular. This is the acceptable time for me to direct a change I want to make in my life. The word new dominates this day, giving people the excuse or permission they feel they need to seek from the world outside to embrace change.
How many times has the phrase “You’ve changed” been used in popular culture to imply not for the better? “He’s a changed man” and “Her whole attitude has changed” get tossed about as though change is usually an unwelcome thing. We want the world to maintain the status quo, and are not comfortable when it does not.
As I have mentioned before, part of our dual nature is that we also desire change. We want to grow, and learn…and inevitably to change. Yet that desire and deep-seated need is counterbalanced by the undesirable negative reaction of our society to change. We want to change and not to change all at the same time.
This is part of the cause, I believe, for people to not choose their own destinies. It is the fear of the negative reaction to change that drives us to allow outside forces control. It is easier, and it seems more socially acceptable to just go with the flow, let life live you, and not rock the boat, so to speak.
But then we get to New Year’s Day. Here the whole world marks the beginning of a new stretch of linear time. This is the perfect vehicle to go ahead and make a socially accepted change.
I further believe it is because we do not take control of our own choices and destiny more frequently that so many New Year’s resolutions fail. Further, resolving to do something is kind of passive/aggressive. You state an intent in a resolution…but is there a corresponding action?
This is where Pathwalking began for me. I chose not to make a New Year’s resolution – instead I chose to take a New Year’s action. I stated that I would post to my blog once a week, every week, for a whole year. I set a day of the week on which I would do this…two years later I cannot imagine my life without this weekly action.
Pathwalking is about choosing your life’s course. Your fate, your destiny, whatever you wish to call it. Choice is about control. By choosing to walk your own path, you are choosing to take control of the life before you. One of the main things this gives you control over is change.
The only other demarcation of time where most people find it socially acceptable to effect change is a Birthday. Once more, we see the deeply personal New Year for that person, and we can accept if they choose that time for change.
I have said many times before, and will likely say many times again that Change is inevitable. It is a result of living, learning, growing, and experiencing life. Pathwalking is very much about embracing change, by choosing what I want from my life, and thus directing how it will come about.
As the New Year dawns, join me in not making a resolution. Instead, this year, choose an action. Don’t just resolve to change this or do that or whatever – act. Don’t resolve to exercise more – join a gym. Don’t resolve to go on a diet – make a change to your eating habits. Don’t resolve to be a better person – make your actions towards yourself and others more positive.
Choose action instead of resolution. As Yoda so wisely said, “Do or Do Not – there is no Try!”
Happy New Year Pathwalkers!
This is the one-hundred fifth entry in my series. These weekly posts are specifically about walking along the path of life, and my desire to make a difference in this world along the way. Thank you for joining me.
The first year of Pathwalking is available in print and for your Kindle.
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