New Year - Shit Happens

My toilet overflowed on New Years Day. Really overflowed – toilet water gushing out in rapids toward the hallway and living room as I raced around the bathroom and house to find every possible towel to sop up the mess. My first thought: “Oh no - It’s a sign!” I began dreading the crappy year ahead…

Fortunately, my years of Cognitive Therapy and current studies in Positive Psychology kicked in and grabbed hold of my mind. “Get a Grip, Carin.” My brain insisted - and that’s when I realized that this wasn’t a sign of a shitty year ahead – it’s a REMINDER that shit happens. Literally.

Here we are in the first week of 2011, our hearts open and our minds hopeful about all that the New Year will bring. We make dramatic resolutions to lose weight, exercise more, be nicer, be our very best! THIS year will be glorious – nothing can get in my way! And then the toilet overflows (or we eat a piece of cake, skip a workout, judge a coworker) and we derail. We give up on our resolutions by mid-January and return to regular life – only now, we are defeated and we still have 350 days ahead!

So here is my resolution for the New Year – not to make sweeping, dramatic resolutions. Rather, I’m going to be the best me that I can be, remembering that shit is going to happen. Obstacles will get in the way, I’ll likely slip and fall miserably on my face a couple of times… But I can get back up. I can dust myself off – and begin again. By remembering that shit will happen, we shift our thinking and our expectations. We can laugh at the obstacle, and we can be kinder and gentler with ourselves should we get off track.

Therefore, my advice for the New Year is to just be. Show up, embrace life and enjoy the flow, but please, do it with a sense of humor and the knowledge that shit is going to happen. As Epictetus, the Greek philosopher said, "Do not seek to have events happen as you want them to, but instead, want them to happen as they do happen, and your life will go well.”

Enjoy 2011, my friends.