Perspective
Life can seem awful and unfixable until the universe shifts a little and the observation point is altered, and then suddenly, everything seems more bearable.
It’s almost the beginning of another year, and we all know what happens then. New Year’s Resolutions. It’s a classic human move. And to be honest, no-one can blame anyone for making 2021 resolutions, considering the rollercoaster of a year we’ve just had. The fact that we have survived this far is reason enough to be grateful and to celebrate in our own way. But have you ever wondered why most of the resolutions that we make at the beginning of the year become just a far-gone memory come December? Well, I have. And I’m here to share with you what I found out. Let’s start at the roots, shall we?
It’s December 31st, New Year’s Eve. You’ve spent the day taking count of your year and imagining all the wonderful possibilities that the coming year has to offer. The daydream excites you. But then you get the sinking feeling you always get when the year is ending. What do you have to show for this year? There are obviously a few achievements here and there but to you, they seem trivial in the grand scheme of things. You promise yourself that this coming year, you are only chasing the Instagram-worthy moments. You want to be great or nothing. So you buy a notebook (you can’t start a new year with an old notebook lest the universe jinxes your year) and you set out to write your resolutions.
Therein lies the problem. Whenever we are writing our New Year’s resolutions, it’s always about what we want to change… on the outside. We want to change our relationships, we want to change our income, we want to change our body, heck we even want to renovate our apartment. Not that there is any problem with any of this, but we never actually ask ourselves why we want to change these things. Most of the time we tend to identify whatever looks wrong to us on the outside and blame it for the feelings on the inside.
The reason our resolutions don’t stick is that we change the outside and expect a different inside. We carry our energies, our mindsets, our hang-ups, our hopes, and our insecurities into the new year. It’s easy enough to think of all the ways you want to change the world and everything outside of you, but changing yourself is really the most important thing you should be thinking about.
It’s all about perspective. Thinking that you can change how things are instead of changing how you see things is a cripplingly false idea and it does nothing to change your life. I know you’ve heard this so many times but the truth is, to change your life, you need to change your perspective. To make your resolutions stick, you need to change how you look at your life. Brianna Wiest put it simply,
Whatever you feel you are not receiving is a direct reflection of what you’re not giving. If you want more recognition, recognize others. If you want love, be more loving. Give exactly what you want to get.
