SWINGING FROM THE TRAPEZE OF LIFE! Are you?

By Cerise DeLand

Seven days into the New Year—and how are those resolutions????

Working? Well? Not? Or forgotten?

I think of this, actually in mid-December when I am writing this, because I looked at our new puppy this morning and out came this thought:

(Bear in mind, his name is Bert. He is strong. He is mutt. He is long sleek Malinois and Lab.) And for some reason this morning, though he’s been with us for 3 months now, I said, “Bert! You remind me of Burt Lancaster, swinging from the trapeze of life!”

He cocked his head, looked at me as if to say, “I’m cool, Ma. How’d you know I swing, I glide, I dip and rise, I turn and spin, dip and rise again?”

He is indeed movin’ with the flow of his new life here, he rises, gets his training and then, yes, he dips and fails. Then he does something totally new and endearing and we all are right with the world in a new new way.

So today, I am asking you, with those resolutions under your belt, how are they working for you? Do you rise with them? Use them?

Sad to say, I have known too darn many people who listed all those happy goals and promptly forgot them.

The ones who said they’d never complain again…about the boss, their coworkers, the industry they work in, the failure of their spouse to…pick a task.

The ones who said they’d exercise and lose weight.

Then they’d keep it off.

The ones who said they’d be temperate in their alcohol consumption.

Then got blitzed.

The writers who vowed to do a daily page count.

The aspiring ones who said they would have time to write when they retired. Or when the kids went off to college.

The women who tell me their marriages are in a slump. Do not know what to do about it. Or who never developed their own sense of self or record of accomplishments. 

The young people who are waiting and waiting and waiting for inspiration to stride about what they want to be when they grow up.

The folks who complain bitterly about what they do every day, but love the money they make doing it.

The ones who tell me they are New Age, but have no idea what it is to sit zazen, or who truly understand and practice the joy of giving to the homeless, the ill, the disadvantaged.

Hello?

My rant today is this: Do not tell me you will, when you have not the tenacity. Do not tell me you are one thing, but act like another.

Do not criticize, and do not complain.

Do not make promises to yourself, that most  special and nigh unto sacred person in your life, if you have no intention of keeping them.

Recognize that you, just like the rest of us, swing from the trapeze of life. You rise, you fall sometimes through no fault of your own. You twist, your turn with the forces that affect you and those you affect.

Make your life happen. Keep it real.

Swing from the trapeze of life and go with a flow that you make. As you approach the glory days of your life, I bet you that you will see positives you never realized before. Aspects you never considered.

All because you were good to yourself and those around you, being a person who TRIED and who, on most occasions, SUCCEEDED.