Picasso’s Disciple

“What do you is what counts and not what you had the intention of doing.” – Pablo Picasso

I’m not going to waste any time listing my New Year’s resolutions.

I truly love the idea of making all these annual promises to change, clean up my act, eat better, work harder, learn a foreign language, and solve all the world’s problems in the next 12 months.

But I’m thinking I might tone it down a little. I already know what I want and what I have to do to get what I want.

So this is a tune-up, a check-in to see how far off the path I’ve wandered (pretty far) and what I have to do to get back on track. I just can’t take the cynic’s route and dismiss the potential for change.

I know that I’ve slipped up pretty seriously in several areas and it’s all for the same reason—a lack of discipline.

For one thing, I’ve been wasting far too much time screwing around on YouTube. I do love the site, but I’ve allowed it to take over my life.

There’s always an old song or instructional video, or movie clip or some other such time-burning bullshit to keep me from writing, reading, meditating or otherwise improving my life.

I’ve also been watching too much TV and not even good TV, but a lot of crap. And let’s not even mention Facebook.

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I’d like to be more disciplined in my reaching my goals and I want to use “discipline” in a positive sense, not the self-defeating, psycho drill sergeant browbeating mentality that bludgeons my soul into a fetal position.

That kind of abuse just sinks you deeper in the mud.

The followers of Jesus Christ were called disciples, and they didn’t follow Him out of fear or guilt; they followed Him out of love, and that’s how I want to approach my goals—with love, not dread.

What I’d like to achieve is a state of striving gratitude, where I am thankful, truly thankful for everything I have--from my family to the roof over my head to the food on my table—while still working hard to make my life better.

And while it’s certainly true that you can change your life any day you chose, New Year’s Day seems like a good time to start.

The Picasso quote at the top of this post is going to be my guide for 2017 and discipline is going to be my mantra.

I already know I’m going to stumble. God knows I’ve done it many times before. The only way not to fail is to do nothing and then you fail at life.

The kind of regret from not attempting something hurts a hundred times more than trying something and failing. I know this from some very personal experience.

I have a specific set of goals, most of which have been around for several years. But I finally published my novel last year and if I can scratch that sucker off the list, then I’m free to move on to others.

And if I could learn how to speak Polish and bring about world peace this year as well, so much the better.

Happy New Year.