Do you make New Year’s resolutions?
If I make any, I tend to make resolutions such as that I will not eat any brussels sprouts and limit my consumption of coconut in. Or maybe that I won’t accept any positions to be CEO of any multinational corporations. These are the kind of resolutions I know I will be able to keep. New Year’s resolutions are all about making changes for the better, about getting life out of a rut and onto a new plain, about becoming a more responsible person or taking on the tasks you have always put off. It is a time many people use to reflect on their lives and consider whether life is going where they want it to go, time to make a fresh start.Of all the holidays we celebrate, in many ways, New Year’s is possibly the one that fits best after a divorce (as long as you stay away from the New Year’s parties where couples are giving one another that midnight kiss for luck). After a divorce, life is all about making fresh starts, about choosing to take on the things that you have never done but wish you had. About assessing where you are in your life and where you want your life to go in the years to come. Sometimes individuals who have ended up divorced go back to school to get that degree they never completed. Sometimes they rearrange the furniture and redecorate their homes. Sometimes they restart projects and hobbies they had long since forgotten. Sometimes they use the time to build the kind of home that reflects the priorities they have always believed were important, but were unable to live by in their marriage. After a divorce, some individuals use this time to start a new and deeper relationship with God, and to examine whether or not they are living their lives in accordance with God’s will and plan, as best as they are able to understand it. As you approach New Year’s, and especially if you are divorced and now having to start so many things in life all over again, I would encourage you to consider combining the post divorce decisions with your New Year’s resolutions and ask yourself what the priorities of your life truly are, and what you want them to be. I encourage you to find ways to build wisely, or maybe for some of us “more wisely,” so that this opportunity for a fresh start in life that has been thrust into your life won’t be wasted. You have a few days left to prepare those resolutions, so get started!
