PhotoCredit: Slow Leak
It’s the first week of the year and notions of rebirth flicker. How will I be this year? Who will I be this year? We resolve and commit (and cheat just a little) and imagine the whole new us that we possibly could be. Glorious plans. Glorious ambitions. Glorious imagining of anything that might improve on the mess of last year.
Then the world emerges from it’s vacation-coma and the trickle begins. From the deep slumber of rest, recovery, and possible reverie. Like bulbs sprouting in spring, our inbox starts to show signs of life. The work year has begun.
We read and we work out and we do all the things we told ourselves we would do. Then the trickle. We make exceptions. Well, just this one here and that one there. We slowly undo the good. We unwind the resolve. We are creatures and we have habits apparently. Tomorrow I will...today it can wait.
As we stick to new rules and form new habits, it can feel a little inconsequential. Saying no feels like a punishment and rather dull. Our inner rebel is screaming for us to go back to the old fun we used to have.
Greatness is achieved in the moments that we could but we don’t. Moments we almost, but we stop ourselves. They don’t appear to be moments of importance. Victories against the trickle are quiet, non-celebratory, and a little bit boring.
Old habits will suddenly flood as the volume is turned up on the year. This first week is the critical time to manage the trickle. Before it manages you.