Oh this is it! This is the year! I’m gonna do it! Whew baby! Aint nothing gonna stop me now! Humpty Dumpty pick that lazy butt up off the ground and put yourself back together because I feel the earth move under my feet! Then like a silent spider with his covert operation buddy the snake time sneaks up to your very busy plate and whispers, “December 21st.”
The New Year’s resolution is null and void!
The Yoga mat sits in a room barely used. The piano lessons the same. How about the front yard project that looked incredibly easy on TV? What about the leaves, twigs and everything else squirrel clogging the gutter? You said this was the year you’d save money by dropping cable TV! The washing machine still sugs and clugs when it should be swishing and swooshing. As for the kids getting more active? In what? Video gaming? Channel changing? What about creating excuses as to why those really cool nifty shoes look better in the center of their bedroom floor?
Between 1994 and 2000…the final ten days of the year were deeply, honestly and loyally dedicated to boldly laying out the path of process for the fast approaching next fifty two weeks. No morning page was written unless it included new ideas, the identification of correcting old habits and or unmasking impossibility by way of shrugging fear off like un-liking a friend on Face Book.
Something changed the course of my writing instrument during the Y2K scare of the new millennium. I began to take New Years resolutions too seriously. Two hundred forty hours before the number 19 disappeared from calendars, vivid pictures from an imagination gone wild reached too far into the realms of what if. In doing so, I began to fear.
FDR shook the birth of unborn history with, “The only thing you have to fear is fear itself.”
And so I let it…
I.T. departments in every corner of the business world became cocky blasting off office emails that belittled more than informed claiming Y2K wouldn’t be what CNN thought it could be.
Although Timothy McVeigh was put away and the Uni-bomber out of sight, America still had no clue what terrorism was except to call it an article read in Time Magazine.
I still remember the conversations about Big Brother. I mean come on, highways and downtown streets could be seen on video screens. Cell phone conversations truly weren’t private and bowling alleys featured black lights, glitter paint, strobes, chasers and speakers the size of Christmas sending out rhythms, rainbows and Hip Hop beats that made the sport extremely exciting.
The only thing missing was George Jettson’s infamous flying car.
Ten days before the millennium changed the prints found on the tips of my fingers laid out poetic expressions that continue to be too real to hold. Only to find the picture vividly becoming clear one year nine months and eleven days into the change. From that moment forward to resolute seemed selfish. It seemed too self serving to wanna change me when “we” needed to rebuild the country our Grandparents gave to us.
Wow! Here we are again. Not just ten days from the change but fifty two weeks from the final page. A little ditty not named Jack and Diane but December 21, 2012. Skeptics, criptic’s, critics and conspiracy theorists and masters who’ve studied the Mayan’s collectively agree this could be.
Kind of weird how we let what other people think control our daily living. Maybe it’s human nature, this thing called fear. What is fear but the lack of knowing?
So when FDR said, “The only thing you have to fear is fear itself.” He was truly telling the most powerful nation on earth that your decision to stop learning is every reason to halt growth.
Over the next ten days ask yourself ten questions. Bravely and honestly answer each with the type of openness that a closed society has encouraged you to practice.
There can be no resolutions if what is being changed has no clue as to who…you are.
There won’t be workouts to melt the body unless the doctor says, “You have cancer or it’s a heart attack.”
There won’t be a tighter budget until the online banking reads zero or barely a penny to save.
There can’t be dinner with the family until the smart lip of a tired teen steals from innocence then borrows it to chance making change.
We wait too long to make dents. The new shape of communication is guaranteeing your imagination enough room to be alone to text while driving while hammering out sixteen hours of work with pay that means nothing to you but at least the family has insurance. The price of gas will never bust the wall below three bucks and eating healthy doesn’t begin with drinking more water. That journey starts with clearing your heart and head.
You have twelve months to get to know you. Ask a question a day… What if the eyes looking back at you each morning you pee truly was someone that constantly had your back, stood up for you when life becomes challenged and quietly held your hand in the office during the delivery of more unheard of demands?
Have you ever laughed at a joke only you thought was funny?
Love what is… I will always believe in you first.
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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