-Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come,
whispering ‘it will be happier’
-Alfred
Lord Tennyson
It seems
I’ve started a habit of writing two blogs a week. One, strictly personal and
will not be posted, the second, for you, my dear readers. This is one of the
second blogs.
It is now
two weeks into the new year. Most people have made and broken their resolutions
and are scurrying about their lives before the tick of the clock and the drop
of a ball. Why? Cause change is hard. Resolutions are hard. Promises are hard.
Living in habitual repetition is easy and comforting.
I have
tried over the years to make certain changes in my life. Take on resolutions
and adhere to them. Some have been successful, some have not. Yet every year
there is one resolution I always make and I try to adhere to. It’s a simple one
really. “Be nicer, maintain your temper and try to be a more pleasant person to
be around.”
Now, I
don’t always achieve this goal. I don’t always maintain my composure and to be
truthful, I can be quite viscous at times. With my words and my actions, also,
by nature I am a recluse. I like my alone time. I like not having to deal with
people, make conversation and be pleasant to folks who just irritate me to no
end.
So every
year I try to overcome these yearnings. It’s not easy. Hell, I don’t even enjoy
family gatherings. Most of the time I end up in some secluded back yard,
sitting under a tree, smoking a cigar and wondering how I got there and when
can I leave. I don’t care where I am,
what I’m doing or who I’m around, I always have these thoughts. I wish I
didn’t. I wish I could be like most people and just enjoy the moments of being
surrounded by people who I’m related to or want to see me. I wish I had that
desire to be as social as they are. But I don’t think no matter how much I wish
for it, try and force it, make endless attempts to be there and in the moment…
inside me there is an urge to just be alone, at home and not exerting my social
graces beyond their limits.
Yet every
year I make the same resolution. I attempt to change my own personal dynamic
and become a more social creature. Even though I know I will fail. Fail
miserably. I don’t do good with crowds of people. I get nervous and I shut
down. Simply because I know that the thoughts raging in my head are not to be
spewed forth from my mouth. If I did allow the floodgates of words to open, I’d
once again find myself alone because I had offended almost everyone in the
room.
Yet I try.
Over and over again. Until, somewhere around July of each year, I finally give
up. Six months of being pleasant and stepping out of my own hermit comfort zone
reaches its limits and the futility of my resolution has to be faced.
Although
there is hope. With the passing of December into January that hope is reborn
and once again I try to step out of my life and into the lives of others, which
usually causes great stress in me and anger in the people I attempt to
socialize with.
Hope is a
strange thing, it makes our minds warp our reality, it provides us comfort in
strife, it calms us when the storms of life rage and give us a sense of control
when we are reeling towards the abyss.
As humans
do we do this as a survival instinct. We have to or else we’d most likely go mad
with depression. I mean, I have hope for change, as do you, as does your
neighbors and , well, most of humanity on this planet and even some that are
spending time off planet. It is a condition that makes us be better towards
each other. Which is admirable. Because there are lots of creatures in this
world, that when the chips are down, just give up. Humans don’t.
We fight
back, we try harder, we wield hope as a catalyst for change.
Which I
suppose is why every year I have the
same resolution.
Because
while I may be a curmudgeon at heart, I hope one day to change.
Have a
great week.
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