Resolutions and Mistakes

Pin It Boy, I’ve made a lot of these in my life.

It seems that I continually make the same mistakes over and over again, and never quite seem to learn my lesson. Sort of like the character, Bruce, in Bill Peet’s book: Big Bad Bruce. Even though there are consequences to this bear’s actions, he just doesn’t learn his lesson.

This is me. But am I doing any better than I was before in my areas of weakness?

I was thinking recently about Jack Marshall. He is a man I heard speak of endorsing yourself for efforts you make in your life; not only the successes. He said, “We oftentimes gauge a failure or success by the outcome, not looking at the efforts involved. Efforts, many times, therein is the success…I’ll call them “part acts.” We make resolutions…yet we often feel that we blow them. We fail to see the part acts, our efforts. If we would look at these, we would have greater hope.”

He went on to talk about the times we make resolutions…resolutions to try harder, to do better, to be better. He said we need to acknowledge and endorse our partial acts. If we resolve to lose weight, then if we eat one less chocolate-chip cookie, we are indeed doing better.

A few years ago I was talking to a friend of mine about how I had only gone to the gym for about 20 minutes, did a quick workout, and then left for the rest of the day. I felt terrible because I hadn’t stayed longer. To this she so wisely replied, “Twenty minutes is more than you were doing before, which was nothing, right?

I firmly believe that we need to stop being so hard on ourselves. If everything we want to accomplish does not get done, this is okay. We just need to be doing better than we were before…endorsing ourselves for every effort, not just our successes…

Mother Theresa was asked by a newspaper reporter (when she was going to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for her humanitarian efforts) why she worked so hard with the impoverished…the reporter said that there will never really be an end to poverty and therefore, her work would never really end. To this, Mother Theresa said, “We are not called to be successful in all things; we are called to be faithful in all things.”

As I shut down my computer, my list of things to do today is not yet done, and yet, I am going to bed.

Good job, me.