Resolving to Be Better in the New Year

17 December 2021

sTORY BY CYNTHIA WALL, LCSW

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. —Viktor Frankl, MD

I started to write about being in The Great Lock Down in early-2020, focused on the uncertain, untimely quality of the Covid-19 attack. “When will it end? How? Will I survive?” Peggy Lee’s voice, Is That All There Is? played frequently on my internal PA system. Then, past the surreal shock, we were surprised to find more time on our hands. I devised my first hashtag, #usethistime, putting a positive spin on the next “few months” as an “opportunity.” (I imagined I was in a white-collar prison, merely unable to see folks I loved or go outside without protections. In my Covid-previous fantasy, I had imagined that I would be the inmate who got buff doing push-ups, took on-line courses for a PhD, would write my next book, and earn the “Most Helpful Prisoner'' award they surely give out. Martha Stewart was my role model. But the year of straight-up lock-down showed me that, without discipline, my release date might find me weighing an extra hundred pounds and having devised multiple recipes for puddings, using coffee creamer.) For a minute last summer, post vaxxing, we were given a second chance: to hug, quit some of the masking, and jubilantly share appreciation for all we missed. But when it was clear we were drifting back to “there” again, I began to despair a little. Then I turned to the brilliant, beloved psychologist-philosopher, Viktor Frankl. While being in a concentration prison (I cannot call it a camp, I just can’t), Frankl discovered the vast difference between liberty and freedom. Liberty is about the right of using the body, and freedom is all about soul, mind, psyche. Embracing this difference can allow us to live less buffeted by waves of hopelessness about environment, economics, politics, and rageful superiority from all sides. Rather than #usingthistime to pile on more accomplishments, I intend, in this cycle, to focus on freedom, on looking for a deeper sense of purpose in each moment. What’s left to do, after tossing the outdated and sorting the worth-keeping? It’s always our challenge, New Year or not, to consider how we live and if changing some habits would make life better.

Read the full article on the Real Estate Magazine website.

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