New Year Irresolution
We love the idea that we choose the way we live our lives. But did we choose the country we were born in? The family we joined? The time and technology, the fashions of clothing and cooking? This is the time for maxing out on the illusion of choice, through the custom of New Year’s Resolutions. This is where we imagine ourselves, not as a completely different being, but as a person more or less like we are now but with some different habits. For resolutions to change ourselves are usually about habits, not about one-off events. We know we are not really changed by one trip to Japan, but we may be changed by the daily practice of Zen meditation. Ah, but it is so difficult to change ourselves! We live the way we live now because of a dollop of necessities (people who need caring for, money that has to be earned) married to the customs of the social groups we inhabit. Just knowing that something would be good for us is not enough to make it happen. We have to get the mind on our s