My New Year's Resolution

...is obviously not about timeliness.

In fact, I was going to give the whole resolution thing a miss.   Poor track record and all that.   But then, I made one anyway.

So it's clearly not about decisiveness, either.

It's also not about the things I should do this year*:

Eat healthier
Nag less
Re-evaluate the phrase "a good skin care regimen" to determine whether it could apply to me personally
Charge what I'm worth
Get some sleep

And it's not about the things that I shouldn't:

Check email while driving
Ever eat at McDonald's
Overcommit
Take my family for granted
Wear that sweatshirt with the holes in it out in public

Nope.  It's not about rightness or wrongness.
It is about an intention and a dream and a few very wise words from Mr. Berry Gordy, Jr**.

The first part, the intention and dream part, comes from the message of the week*** at my kickboxing studio:

Make a list.  A real list, that you write down and keep close.   On one side of the list are your intentions, your goals.  Specific, attainable things you want for yourself this year.   On the other side are your dreams.  Your wildest, craziest, biggest ambitions.  The pie-in-the-sky hopes that make your heart soar.   If you don't give voice to your dreams, you may as well not have them, right?  So let them fly!

The second part, the Berry Gordy part, comes from a talk he gave to the kids at my daughter's school in honor of Martin Luther King's birthday.    He told stories about his boyhood and his boxing days and his career in music and his friendship with Dr. King that had the entire room spellbound.    How hard it was for him to embrace the concept of "turning the other cheek", but how deeply he felt that to be at the core of the civil rights message that we were all celebrating now.  Towards the end, he said there was one great lesson he'd learned the hard way:

The secret to happiness is being proud of yourself.  To live life in a way that you feel good about deep down inside.   All kinds of people are rich and famous and miserable.  Other people have a lot less but they are full of joy.   Choose well.  Choose good.  Choose joy.

And so, I'm doing just that.  My intention and my dream and my resolution are all the same:

This year, I resolve to be happy.
I choose joy.   

What's on your list?

*I may do those things this year.   But I don't officially resolve to do them.
** Yes, that Mr. Berry Gordy, Jr.
*** This was actually the message of two weeks ago.  But I think I did already say that this wasn't about timeliness.  And I did manage to get it written down, so that's a huge plus.