Do Your Resolutions Have Heart?

I always like to write a blog half way into the first month of the new year to see how everyone is doing on the commitments they just signed on for. It is amazing how important we think our resolutions are until we are face to face with the work of maintaining them!

I recently read the Steve Jobs biography which not only did I love but which also got me back in touch with many of the ideologies that drove my thinking in my late teens and twenties - the late 60's and early 70's. I have been rereading some seminal books of that time like Autobiography of a Yogi, The Teachings of Don Juan - A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, and some old nutrition books by Arnold Ehret that I have saved.

I came across a passage in The Teachings of Don Juan that spoke to me. Of course I am in a different place now than I was 40 years ago when I first read the book, but good books have a way of evoking new meaning no matter how many time you reread them.

Don Juan, the aging the sorcerer says, "My benefactor told me about it once when I was young, and my blood was too vigorous for me to understand. Now I do understand it. I will tell you what it is: Does this path have a heart? All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. They are paths going through the bush, or into the bush. In my own life I could say I have traversed long, long paths, but I am not anywhere. My benefactor's question has meaning now. Does the path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you."

So ask yourself now, "Do your resolutions have heart?'" Your answer may help explain why you are or not keeping them.