Trading Places with Myself: The Solution to my New Year’s Resolution

Over the past 25 years, I struggled to maintain resolution after resolution. I was a mess. I had multiple jobs, piling bills, and just could not seem to acquire a moment of breathing room to get on pace, let alone get ahead of my issues and problems. As I stumbled through my twenties and into my thirties, I figured a magic moment would occur, and I would then achieve everything that I set out to accomplish. I was wrong each and every time I felt that moment was taking shape.

Looking up at the clouds, I would wonder where my life was headed and what it would take to get there. Book after book, fake guru after fake guru, I strived and struggled to find focus as well as a sense of satisfaction with the life I was living. Instead, I continually found myself enduring episodes of solitude that were killing me softly, and I was slowly suffocating in a world that was beginning to happen around me.

I found a sense of rest and peace in the depths of my heart and mind, where I would imagine a different me. This version of me existed millions of lightyears away, across an array of multiverses and time continuums. In this world, I had it all together. I was intellectually, mentally, and spiritually balanced. I was deliberate and methodical, strategizing and designing my best life. I had foresight, a vision, and was in tune with my goals and desires, and I understood the paths to having and attaining both. In that world and life, that version of me was everything I wanted and needed to be.

But then the chaotic hustling-bustling noise of my mare’s nest reached in, yanking me across the layers of the universe, placing me right back in my moment of despair and desperation. My imaginings were stifled, and my fragile ego was completely crushed. I'm lying here now, a living eulogy and obituary, a rusty stain in the fabric of humanity's striving. But I have not given up yet.

The year 2021 brought a great number of challenges, marked by a series of events that shaped my character. Throughout the course of a tumultuous existence where I constantly faced uncertainty, rejection, and frustration, 2021 reeled me in and gave me a life lesson summed up in one word: patience. Yes, a word that moderates the balance between life and death, success and failure, understanding and ignorance. Like the gravitational pull and projection of an ocean wave, patience subjected me to pause and face the calamity of my present situation.

Though I initially resisted with the vigor of a restless toddler, patience reigned me in. Like a loving mother, it then eased my mind, settled my emotions, and calmed my spirit. In this new headspace, I was able to discern those areas in my life that needed to be addressed. One by one, case by case, I examined my choices that were either guided by thoughtful decisions or marked with spontaneity. All of a sudden, I had an epiphany: there were two versions of me living in this one body, and both were in an ongoing saga, vying for ultimate control.

I then recounted the blocks of time I would spend imagining the purposeful and forward-thinking version of myself that lay many lightyears and multiverses away. I came to realize this wasn’t just the me that I imagined, but more so, it was the deprived version of me that was engulfed in the dust of my misgivings. All this time, I had actually been inviting myself to thrive in the sunshine of my very best life. That faraway place that I envisioned was not only within my reach but was the neglected path of my mortal journey.

I was dumbfounded. How is it that I shadow boxed for so many years, circling each round of circumstances, being both the champion and my own defeated opponent? As the year 2021 came to a close, I decided that I would no longer pray at the altar of myself, looking and hoping for a solution. I instead devised a resolution to put away my old self and embody everything I imagined myself to be.

The clock struck midnight, and I celebrated, completely refreshed and renewed. My mind is clear, my emotions are centered, and my spirit is fortified. I go forth into 2022 more determined than ever before, with a commitment to achieving my goals and a passion for financial prosperity. I will have many steps to climb throughout this year of success, but trading places with myself was my first step.

If you enjoyed this article, please give it multiple claps, subscribe, and share it with your network.