Intentional & Resolute: 2023 Edition
Although “resolutions” shaped my New Year’s vision for most of my past decades, for the last few years it’s been all about “intentions.”
What’s the diff?
Subtle but powerful, as many have stated. “Resolutions” tend to be about what you will (or won’t) do, in some outcome oriented, measurable way.
“I will work out X times per week.”
“I won’t lose my temper.”
“I will get a new job.”
I’m not saying those are, or ever were, my resolutions. They’re simply examples of linear, measurable, binary, outcome-oriented goals.
The Left Brain — oh, you’re right. I didn’t say “left hemisphere.” More and more I see “brain” as a word that really should be plural, given how different our right and left sides are from one another. More on that this year. And the Left Brain loves a good linear, measurable, binary, outcome-oriented goal. A way to prove it got (or didn’t get) the job done.
Intentions, I believe, are hemispherically balanced. They are directional. Thematic. About values core to the heart, the soul, the person we most want to be in the world. And the world we most want to see.
And yet convertible to action. Constant tended, attended, returning, repeated action. In perfect Left Brain Right Brain balance.
When I think of “intention” I recall Brian Chesky’s long-ago (2014) post about culture being “1,000 things 1,000 times.” That’s intention: a directional vision where you point your attention, one you return to as you waver, course correct, remind yourself, and get back on track in 1,000 ways, 1,000 times.
I have three intentions for 2023.
The first is to care in ever-better ways for my physical being. It’s the home, the vessel, in which everything happens. My move to New Mexico last year, my decision to stop drinking alcohol in late 2021, a newfound commitment to weight training, my beloved high desert hikes — all of these serve that intention, yet don’t define it.
Intention One is about a path of constant commitment to wellness, especially as time ticks on. Understanding my blood health, monitoring my biological age, prioritizing sleep, working with a functional medical practitioner, staying committed to daily meditation: I will tend to these commitments this year. I acknowledge the privilege of being able to choose this intention. There are few gifts greater than a body that is healthy enough to sustain these priorities, and I am grateful every day.
(Mentioning a service/app I’m using to help support this intention: Project Serotonin. As disclosure, my youngest son is on the Serotonin team.)
Listening, better than ever, to the needs and honesty of my 64-year-old body, and honoring it every day, feels exciting, inviting. I took my physical being for granted for many a year — even years where I stated ambitious resolutions — and it treated me well just the same. Time for me to return the favor and to establish a pattern, intentionally, that only improves with time.
Intention Two: to cultivate work that makes my next 15 years more generous, heart-led, service-oriented, and of value to others than the cumulative chapters so far.
The exemplary Roshi Joan Halifax, Abbot of Upaya Zen Center and a profound example of service and good, inspired the “15 year” part. She’s 80: radiant, brilliant, force-of-nature, action-oriented 80, and she reminds me there is still time, precious time, to offer something of value to the world.
Roshi Joan recently introduced me, and none too gently, to the concept of “robaishin” in Zen practice.
This “Grandmother’s Heart” wisdom is all about discernment, in walk and in talk. Robaishin, as Roshi Joan explains here, decides what’s worthy and what’s not, chooses what to shed and what to fight for, and calls out what isn’t working while letting what doesn’t matter waft away. Sometimes with a very un-Zen-like eye roll.
Think “compassion meets sternness,” like a grandmotherly version of Jocko, and you’ll get the essence of robaishin.
Grandmother’s Heart means keeping my small corner of the world tidy and unfettered. Paying attention only to what is worth the price of admission as the seconds of time unerringly tick away. Being present to each moment regardless of what is arising. Calling out injustice, unfairness, or squander when I see it. All too often we see it.
And cultivating stubborn optimism, a term introduced through the work of Costa Rican diplomat and activist Christiana Figueres. The phrase “stubborn optimism” somehow helped me turn a corner, shifting away from despair and seeing a path where my actions invite, even in small ways, a more hopeful future than the one we’ve created so far.
Some of you might think I’m being hard on myself. Maybe. I mean, I have much to feel satisfied with in my journey so far. I can understand why folks often ask if I came to New Mexico to retire. I get it. It would be easy to be “done.”
Yet the answer is NO, spoken in a strong robaishin voice. Sure, there’s some conventional “success” on my CV. I’ve followed the rules, stayed within the lines, in ways that often won approval from the outer world. Yet too often they won less from my inner longings, my heart-aching desire to be of service in ways I have yet to attain. As my amazing friend Roz Savage reminds me, “If your dreams don’t scare you, they’re not big enough.”
She’s right. Though it feels like more than “dreams” as I face Intention Two. It feels like duty, and I’m ready to act on its call.
(Another mention: Roz’ new book, “The Ocean in a Drop: Navigating from Crisis to Consciousness.” It’s like a brain upgrade on the issues we all face at this time.)
The third intention is reduce my impact as a consumer. Yeah, yeah: I pay attention to what and how I buy, telling myself about my relatively “conscious” ways of consuming. Yet intention demands constant awareness and improvement. I fall for easy, even indulgent, too often. I say “yes” to things before deciding if I actually really need them, thus bringing more into my life than is essential. I order or purchase things that too frequently come in undue packaging, and rationalize what I do (reduce reuse recycle) with that packaging.
Often, it’s the best I can do. Yet I can do with less of it. We live in a world where it’s all to easy to say “Yes” to little extra things that cause happy-making (momentarily) dopamine surges that, ironically, raise the desire for yet more future dopamine surges.
Yet these little happy-making things accumulate and often turn out to be unneccesary, even burdensome, in the reckoning after the fact. As my friends at San Francisco’s excellent Community Thrift Store can attest, I accumulated more things, many of them objectively wonderful, than any one person needed. In an epic purge akin to the Swedish “Death Cleaning” tradition, I recently bestowed several carloads of these wonders upon Community Thrift. I hope these treasure’s next owners will cherish them fully, yet will practice more restraint than I did during the chapters when I acquired them.
As I commit to these three intentions, I feel the pull of easy forgetting, the ingrained tugs of old habits and ways that no longer serve. I remember that “mindful” is usually more like “re-mindful” and that, like Brian Chesky said, the path is constant. It’s about returning 1,000 times, in 1,000 ways.
Yet I also remember that you can, actually, teach an old brain (or any brain) new tricks. My reset for 2023 is about a new page, a new chapter: one where I tend to what calls me most, with discernment and a bit of grandmotherly sternness, one step at a time. Although a new beginning can happen any time, for some reason this 2023 page-turn suddenly feels hopeful, maybe even stubbornly so, and resolute. I’m ready. Let the new journey, and the clear intentions, begin.
