Decide

I think all of the intense Astrological activity going on in Capricorn has me thinking about things in solid and practical terms. I was recently inspired to consider a slightly different approach to an old tradition.

Many, after weeks of letting all forms of discipline lay to the way side during the holidays, motivate themselves into New Years Resolutions. We state intentions to eat better, exercise more, lose weight, be nicer, do better, so on and so forth. Those who work at (or work out at) gyms know that memberships and attendance go way up in January.

If you are inclined to state and focus on resolutions for this new year (and new decade), please do! At the same time, consider some of what I am about to discuss and see how it feels.

I, for one, have decided to focus my attention on decisions rather than on resolutions. Furthermore, my decisions are about what and who I want to be, not so much what I intend to do.

For example, some time ago, I decided that I wanted to be (more) neat and organized. I didn’t want to be someone who only cleaned for company, but someone who was clean and organized as a general rule.

A new decision I made recently is to enjoy cleaning. I have decided with intention to allow cleaning to be fun…to allow it to be satisfying. One can view housecleaning as a chore, as something that is never done, as something that takes too much time. On the other hand, cleaning provides instant gratification! You can look at a room, see how it is messy, then with little actual effort, improve its appearance.

As a result of these recent decisions, I am enjoying cleaning more and I am appreciating the improvements more. After I clean anything, I take a moment to enjoy and appreciate how it then looks!

Last year, I decided to join a new gym. I already had a gym membership somewhere else. However, that other gym had become increasingly inconvenient to get to. I noticed how much resistance amassed just at the thought of driving across town in traffic. One day, the idea to join another gym closer by popped in, and it felt good.

But here is the greater decision I made: I decided I would not use gym membership as a way of berating myself. I decided going to the gym was something I would do when I didn’t have anything else to do…or simply when I felt like it.

Resolutions are great, however, when we find ourselves not sticking to them, we use them as excuses to judge ourselves, to berate ourselves, to put ourselves down.

The point of this discussion is not so much what you call it: goal, resolution, or decision. The point is the time. Too often, goals and resolutions are about the future. When you have a resolution to lose weight, you are focused on the future…a future that may or may not come…and will most likely not come when and how you might want it to.

My proposal is to focus on a state of being here and now.

Here is another example. Let’s say you have a desire to be rich. This is a wonderful desire. It is also something you can be right here and right now…with some focus.

I specifically chose the words: be rich. First, it is about a state of being. Second, rich is a subjective adjective. It is about perspective.

Wealth, specifically financial wealth, is more objective. You can tally up how much money you have (in terms of currency) and how much you own (in terms of assets). This gives you a number. But no two people will see that number the same way.

In 2019, I bought a house. There is a whole story around how this came to be. Not two months later, I bought a truck. I didn’t even plan it. I took my old truck in for service and drove home in a new one. The whole process around buying a house, all the thoughts about money and finance, shifted my thinking enough for me to let myself have the truck I had been thinking about for years.

I still have a lot of resistance around money. If I think about the future, if I keep score in certain ways, if I wonder what it would have been like had I never left my previous (lucrative) career, I fret. But when I focus on here and now. When I look at what I own and really look at it, I feel strong appreciation!

Furthermore, I think about how it all came to be (the new stuff that is). A year ago, I did a reading for myself. I was experimenting with Horary Astrology. The subject was about moving. The most significant piece of that reading was that it said, quite explicitly, that I did indeed desire owning a home (rather than renting). You would think I would just know that, but I didn’t.

When we spend a lot of time focused only on what we think is possible, we forget what we actually desire. Those desires we think are not possible thus get filed away. That reading allowed me to pull one back out of the archives. It helped me decide.

The decision to buy a home wasn’t a one-and-done decision. In fact, for many months in 2019, I kept thinking I would forget the whole thing and just continue to rent.

However, the initial deciding created a stream that had begun to gain momentum, and that momentum carried me through.

I now realize the truer decision I made a year ago was to give it a chance…was to explore the idea of buying a house, while also not requiring it to happen in order to be happy.

On this, the penultimate day of the year and decade, we are in that very same place I was in a year ago. In fact, we always are.

Today, you can make a decision to be something…to have something…even to do something. Even if the future is what will bring it to you, you can decide here and now.

But also decide to not judge yourself by taking score…or at least to notice when you do and as quickly as you can turn away from that.

Decide who you want to be here and now. If you want to be more of something, be the part of it you are now. If you want to be more wealthy, notice the wealth you have now. If you want to be more fit, notice the physical fitness and capabilities you have now. Start being what you want to become by being the part of it you are now! Acknowledge that and give yourself credit now.

Allow the intention (to become something) inspire the action. Don’t decide what you will do in the future. Focus on what you want to be, and then in the coming days and months, when you find yourself thinking about your desire, see if there is an action that feels good to take that specific day.

If it feels good, go ahead and make a list or draw out a plan, but allow each day to inspire what is best for that moment.

Whenever you decide, you always decide here and now. That decision is powerful. That decision initiates a stream. Through your allowing; through your focus; through your desire and intention that stream will gain momentum all on its own. The momentum of that stream can carry you over and under and through and around your resistance. You might bump into it all along the way, but so be it. That just makes the ride more interesting.

Feel what you feel when you feel bad, and then refocus your attention when that calms.

The only time you’ll ever experience is now, so you might as well enjoy it! Enjoy what you are now. Enjoy what you have now, including the desire to be more, do more, and have more.

It all begins now.