Friday, January 07, 2011

The Creativity of the Non-Resolution by Leona Beasley




I don’t like New Year’s resolutions, therefore I don’t make them.

I do however like to set and reach goals. Perhaps my words are semantics in action.

New Years’ resolutions seemed attached to guilt and fear. Somewhere between: Oh my Gawd I haven’t...to How in the world do I learn to…

You’ve failed all year to do that thing you’ve most wanted to accomplish. Perhaps you’re wanted it for many years, even a decade.

And at the end of, or beginning of the New Year—now—Now is the time to make it stick. NOT!

So I make unpressured goals. Something fun. Something that even if I only sprinkle a few drops throughout my day, weeks, months and years, I’ll experience movement, and change—I’ll get something new.

My goal is to actively play with creativity, to make it my friend and go on dates with it. To spend unbridled and designated time where I go out in the world and experiences things I love (like movies, museums and poetry and fiction readings).

Or try things I’ve only thought about in passing, like take a cooking class, a wine tasting and pairing class, or bird watch with nature geeks.

I want to creatively try things I can’t imagine presently. In this understanding I plan to be open to new experiences, be game to see and feel the un-imaginable; To boldly go where no man (no woman) has ever gone.

Okay took that line from Star Trek’s opening credits; still it drives home the image of trying something new.

Living creatively is the goal I want to accompany me this year and to infinity and beyond.

I love Buzz Light Year.