Facing the Challenge

It’s Monday after a long holiday weekend, which came right after another long holiday weekend. The fresh possibilities of the new year seem already in the past. We’re on day four of our resolutions and intentions and many of us can feel the desire to change subsiding into the ordinariness of our non-holiday lives. The same stuff in our lives that affected us enough to want to change is there to seduce us back to stasis.

So today, let yourself think of something different, something that does not require willpower or stamina.

Let yourself be.

You could ask yourself the motivational question, attributed to Robert H. Schuller, that shows up on bookmarks, paperweights, and coffee cups: “What would you do if you knew you could not fail?” 

That may work for you. Perhaps it doesn’t.

You could meditate. Breath in and breath out. Deeply and calmly. 

Then again, that could just seem silly. I’ve never been able to get to any internal calm by meditation, although perhaps I would like it if I kept at it. That’s a challenge I’m not interested in facing right now.

You could doodle or draw or scribble something, words or lines or whatever.

Something may come of that or something might not. Your inner voice may claim you aren’t a writer or an artist.

Or you could let yourself be who you are right now in this moment. 

I think that may be the real challenge. Who am I? What are the parts of me I like? What don’t I like? 

In order to change, we need to know the starting point. Not who we are on January 1, but who we are today, right now.