The New Year is right around the corner and provided that the world doesn’t end in 2012, most people are starting to think about their New Year’s resolutions.
You know, those goals and wishes we make right before we go out and consume massive quantities of alcohol and indiscriminately start kissing strangers at midnight on December 31st?
Most of the time the resolutions we choose are personal ones. We want to lose weight or stop smoking. We want to exercise more, meet a new man or woman. or get out of the relationship we’re in. Something that will make our lives better.
Most of the time our resolutions fail. We work out for the first week of January and after that, not so much. We tell that guy or girl who is making us miserable to take a hike, but then Valentine’s Day rolls around and we give them a call just to see how they are doing.
We enter the New Year with the best intentions, but by March we are back into our old routine. I think most resolutions fail not because they are too difficult to keep but because they are too small.
If you’re going to be making a resolution, why not make it a really big one?
Make a resolution that will change the world. It’s a lot easier than you think.
When I asked my twitter followers what some of their resolutions for the New Year were, I got the normal things but was a bit surprised at how many wanted to do more volunteering in 2012. Which got me thinking. How much better of a world would it be if in the New Year we all did something for the communities we live in?
If every one of us just spent one day a month helping out others, 2012 would be not the end of the world, but the beginning of a whole new one.
The volunteering could be anything from a soup kitchen to the local library. Maybe you spend some time at your child’s school and help out there. Adult literacy courses always need help. The options are endless. They even extend to the internet. I do some micro-volunteering at a web site called sparked.com in addition to my “real world” volunteering. There really is no excuse to not help others anymore. Everyone, and I mean everyone, can spare a few hours a month to make their part of the world better. Just think about how much time you spend watching TV. What if you watched one less show a month and devoted that time to helping others? How great would that be?
I know some of you may be thinking that I’m preaching too much or that my idea isn’t feasible. That’s fine. I truly believe my vision of every person helping out someone else can happen. I’m irrational sometimes. I know that. People have called me crazy my whole life. I’m used to it. But I know deep in my heart I’m right on this one.
And just to be clear, there is nothing wrong with focusing on you and trying to make yourself a better person. Nothing at all. It’s important to be happy with the person you are. All I am asking is that you take some time and help the community around you.
Maybe 2012 will be the end of the world, the end of the old, selfish world that has gotten us to where we are now. But it might also be the beginning of a new world. A world where we all give something back.
My New Year’s resolution is to make that happen.
