So, as noted on Facebook, I did find time on January 1 for my semi-annual taking stock "compass readings"...not MUCH time, but a bit.
I've been doing that on New Year's Day and my birthday for maybe 30 years now. I don't make resolutions or set goals; life offers pressures and challenges enough, really. I don't need to pile more on my plate.
This is one reason I don't do "challenges," either, those lists of art ideas, or weight loss challenges, or writing challenges, or 30-whatevers-in-30-days things, or fitness challenges; FitBit is a tool, not a bludgeon, and I don't care to shame anyone or BE shamed.
(And okay, yes, tempted by the Whole 30 idea, but...maybe not.)
I need room for flexibility and spontaneity. I need to be open, to listen. I've always felt constrained, trapped, even, by too many things on the schedule, even if they're likely to be pleasurable.
So my compass readings are simply looking back over the past year, from the vantage point of this reading to the last, and considering where I've been. If it feels right. If I feel I'm still going in the right direction. Conscience, family, creativity, work, love, satisfaction, all figure into those "feelings."
Sometimes I get "direction" as to course corrections I might need to make. Sometimes simply confirmation that this is right, for me.
Almost always, the BEING there is confirmation in itself. As I added on my note, above: "Here. Here. Always HERE." Not Watkins Mill lake per se--though that's been a frequent destination--but OUT there. In nature. Listening. Being.
Yes.
