We begin every new year with new hopes, new dreams, new goals. Some of us have resolutions we make for the new year, new to do lists, new bucket lists. As the year goes by we find ourselves disappointed, frustrated, and feeling like failures because those resolutions didn't work out the way we planned so we give them up in February anyway!
About 18 years ago I made one last New Years Resolution and it was to NOT make any more of them. That is the one New Year Resolution I have found myself keeping year after year since. About three years ago I took on the concept of creating my own bucket list for the year and even that I didn't seem to be able to complete as I thought it should be, so last spring I began to develop several smaller bucket lists for my life, a new bucket list each season of the year. My springtime bucket list consisted of things I enjoy, things I wanted to do in the spring. Things as simple as a new garden, a trip to the zoo. Things that were fun and things I knew were within reach and doable. I began to realize that the seasonings in my life are added by me, and if I was going to be disapponted because reality is there is no way I am going to be able to go on an African Safari and see the giraffes, maybe I needed to readjust the goal. I could still see the giraffes I so love by putting a trip to the zoo to see the giraffes on my spring season bucket list. Not only would I then see them, but I would feel gratification and validation of something that I enjoyed. It felt great to accomplish the things on my bucket list, so I carried the concept into the summer, adding things as simple as fresh flowers in vases regularly. I was amazed at how simple that was to do, all that was required was cutting them out of the flower garden that was also on my bucket list to have.
Life is full of good things and though there are many not so great moments mixed in there, the seasonings we choose to add to our life can make all the difference. Just like the cook adds seasoning to his cooking, we have the choice to add seasoning to our lives. Some times we make the decsion to add a little too much of a particular seasoning, sometimes we don't quite add enough, but each day gives us a new chance to adjust our personal recipe.
The old saying "when life gives you lemons make lemonade" is a great saying. The problem most of us have with that is either we tend to add either too much sugar in our lemonade or too little. I discovered we tend to go a bit overboard with the other seasonings we add to make our life more appealing as well. Perhaps we add the wrong seasoning at the wrong time.
This year my winter bucket list began with more ways to give me more simplicity in my life, more self reliance, and more ways to save money for other things on my bucket list. Now I still will not be able to go on that African Safari, but that has long since been edited and revised, and deleted from my personal bucket list.
January represents to our society a new start, so I began my new start here on the homefront and decided I would be able to afford more of the good seasonings in my life if I adjusted some of the basic recipes. I won't save enough for that African Safari, but who knows maybe one day if I can see the giraffes at Busch Gardens rather than the Lowry Park Zoo, either way though I can still feel the joy of watchng them and really isn't that the most mportant part?
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