I recently overheard the conversation held by two people in their twenties. One asked the other about a bad habit they had. The other person said that they would give up this bad habit when they reached 30.
I smiled as I heard this. Would the person wait until they reached 30 to give up their habit? Might they do it before? Or would they keep doing their bad habit for many more years after they turned 30? One only knows.
Change is hard. It takes determination. It takes commitment. It takes sacrifice. Change means giving up the old and the familiar, and venturing out into new and untried paths.
Diet companies and gyms tell us that the New Year is a perfect time to make changes to our lives. They tell us that it is a New Year so why not make way for a new you. It sounds simple enough. Why not use the New Year to change yourself. But if you are not ready on that date, such resolutions are doomed to fail. If the drinker is not ready to give up booze on January 1st, then they won't change no matter what the calendar says. Resolutions fail if people aren't ready to live them out.
But change is possible. If I am willing to break a bad habit I need to be willing to endure the pain, the angst, the cravings, the sacrifice. Only then will I be able to change. Change can happen on New Years or on our birthdays, or on any day of the year as long as we are committed to that change. However if we rely on the calendar to give us that impetus to change, I think we are more doomed to failure. I will change next year is code for I am not ready for change yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment