My New Year's Resolution is: I Have None.

Where I come from, people don’t make New Year’s resolutions. Instead, they make New Year’s wishes. And they assure them by performing a series of rituals that look pretty funny from the outside. At the stroke of midnight, the average Colombian household will carry out at least a few of the following practices, if not all of them:

1. Make sure that you are wearing yellow underwear. It’s thought to bring good luck.

2. Be mindful that your first step is taken with the right foot. That one seems pretty self-explanatory.

3. Don’t forget to have money in your hand to ensure you will have plenty all year long.

4. Eat twelve grapes, asking for one wish with each one of them.

5. Place twelve tillers of wheat on the dining table to ensure plenty of food for you and your family.

6. Grab a bag and run around your block o ensure traveling to new places. The more turns you complete, the further you will travel.

7. Burn the previous year in effigy. It's usually done by building a big rag doll that represents the worst of the year. If allowed, fill it up with fireworks and watch it go up in colorful flames.

I thought about those cool traditions when I received a newsletter from a meditation teacher who is also a friend. She explained that she does not make New Year’s resolutions because they all seem to imply that something is broken and needs fixing: weight to be lost, money to be made, love to be found. Resolutions are meant to improve your life, but all they seem to do is pointing to how “bad” it all is. They make us feel like damaged goods; it implies judgment, deciding that we are lacking and that we are so beyond faulty that we should get on to the task of repairing that damaged self. That is not a great place to start a new year.

Instead, my friend suggested something better: first, reflect on the past year and focus on the good things that have happened: the time when your family came together to help one of their own. A spouse that sticks through thick and thin. The friend that calls or takes your call every time you need someone to talk to. Purposefully look for the positives, and you will find them for sure, no matter the circumstances.

My friend then mentioned a quote from a Catholic Saint, Francis de Sales: “Be yourself. And do that well.” I was so moved by it that I search for more pearls of wisdom from this man and found the following one: “nothing is so strong as gentleness; nothing so gentle as real strength.” this year, be gentle to yourself. Appreciate the fact that you wake up every day and do your best. Enjoy as many little things as you can so they will feed you and give you the strength to accomplish bigger ones. Don’t deprive yourself so that you can tell the world how difficult your life is. It is easy to find ways to make life difficult, but it is equally easy to learn point to the good things. The difference is that pointing toward the negative will make you more and more tired and defeated. Pointing to the good things will give you respite and make the next step a bit easier. And then the next and the next one after that.

What if, instead of New Year’s resolutions, we write down New Year’s desires? What if by merely acknowledging that we do have those desires and putting them out in the universe, they become more accessible than they ever were before? I like to think that is true. So I’ll stick with it.

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