As I sit here in my kitchen, the flame of the candle in front of me seems superfluous as I am looking out onto a frost-covered garden in brilliant winter sunshine. To match the frosted coating of the lawn, a white cat is nimbly walking along the back fence. The top of the fence is very narrow. I do not know how cats can perform such elegant acrobatic feats. Walking along the top of fences must be like walking a tightrope for them and yet they do it with more grace than humans do on a tightrope. I have never physically walked a tightrope. I doubt I will now, my age and weight being what they are. I have never been agile anyway, not in the least! So I doubt I would be in any way graceful if I tried. I have walked a tightrope metaphorically sometimes,  but then there are moments when we all have I guess.

 Of late I have been rather remiss in deciding when to sit down and write these meditations. Often I have been writing them in the morning or afternoon, as you may have noticed, and at my kitchen table. My inspiration, Marcus Aurelius, wrote his own Meditations late at night in his sleeping quarters when the business of the day was over. For me, the business of the day has become my writing now that I am retired. That is, in between excursions, travels and meeting friends! So I now tend to write during the day -when I do! However, the end the day is perhaps the best time to reflect and meditate, as Marcus shows us. But then he didn’t have the TV or mobile phone to distract him at night and neither were his thoughts disturbed by the difficult and compelling choice of which streaming channel to watch!

This morning is perhaps an appropriate time to write this meditation as the bright and clear sunshine streaming through the window lifts my spirits and instills me with a bright and clear hope for the New Year. I might even be tempted to make some resolutions for the New Year too. The sunshine is inspiring me to be more positive in my outlook on life at least. Perhaps I may pursue a new activity:  but it will not be training to be an acrobat or tightrope walker for sure! 

New Year’s resolutions tend to fall into two categories. They may be decisions to take up an activity, as I have just mentioned, such as deciding to learn Italian or join a gym or to finally arrange a holiday to that destination you haven’t quite got around to visiting. Or they can be a checklist for self- improvement as we attempt to take an honest look at ourselves at the end of one year so as to hopefully change our bad habits at the start of a new one. 

This list of good intentions is very different from a Christmas wish list, like the one we used to leave out for Santa when we were children and which we may still compile in case friends or family ask us what we would like for Christmas. That list, in the main, depends upon others (no longer Santa!) to fulfill by giving those gifts to us. Although, as we know, surprise gifts are often more fun to receive and sometimes reveal just how thoughtful a friend or relative can be.

By way of contrast, a list of New Year’s resolutions is dependent upon ourselves to fulfill and not someone else. They involve concrete decisions and planning. In the case of our checklist of self- improvement, they involve a desire, a determination to change.

Perhaps this is why sometimes (or more often) our resolutions can fall at an early or even the first hurdle. Deep down perhaps we don’t want to change anyway. It’s too easy to hang onto that bad habit or to be quickly discouraged. Well Rome wasn’t built in a day (as I am sure Marcus would agree) but it was built day by day, step by step. Change is possible in small steps, if we desire it. 

Perhaps we shouldn’t be thinking about a New Year’s resolution but a New Day’s resolution. After all each day is a new beginning. I am reminded of the 2nd Century desert hermit St Antony who, as the legend goes, lived till he was a hundred. He was a wise and holy man who would start every day by saying ‘Today I begin.’ Every day is a fresh start. 

In his own Meditations, Marcus refers to making a resolution each day at dawn to try to deal more patiently with the difficult people he may encounter during the day. To try to achieve this, he decides to attempt to see them as fellow human beings, as his ‘kinsmen’. Elsewhere in his Meditations he refers to his hasty temper, so he was very much aware of some of his shortcomings and that temper of his may have led to this resolution at dawn: at the start of the day.

The other day I came across a quote from the American philosopher and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 82) who writes ‘What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters, compared with what lies within us.’ Perhaps, in considering New Year resolutions we should not so much think about what lies behind us (our previous bad habits or shortcomings) or even try to formulate what lies before us (by deciding upon resolutions for the future to change) but reflect upon what lies within us. In other words to look within ourselves in a positive way: to focus each day on our strengths, our abilities, our potential, the gift which we are to others. 

I have finally finished this meditation in the evening in my lounge. Not surprisingly I have found myself being more reflective by candlelight. Cue for a resolution only to write these meditations in the evening in future!

A Happy New Year to you, dear reader

Ave atque Vale

Neilus Aurelius

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