resolution

The speaker discusses New Year's resolutions and how easily they are broken or forgotten. They emphasize the importance of being realistic and starting from where one is currently at. They give examples of their own struggles with sticking to resolutions, such as choosing herbal tea over coffee. They also mention the difficulty of overcoming addictions and the need to find alternative ways to cope. The speaker suggests incorporating meditation and exercise into their routine as a form of self-improvement. They stress the importance of working with one's own abilities and capacities rather than striving for perfection. Hi everyone. New Year's Resolutions. I wonder how many of us make them and break them. Or we keep them going for maybe a month or so and then they disappear into the area where good intentions disappear. I'm not quite sure where that is but that's what seems to happen. And it can happen immediately. You can have a good intention. I have it every morning. I go down to breakfast and I decide I'm going to have herbal tea and I end up making tea or coffee because I prefer that. And then I might decide, oh well I'll make some porridge and I end up having bread because it's toast because it's easier. And that's just an example of within a few seconds, a minute or so, a resolution can be completely lost. But I think we have to be realistic and we have to start from where we are and what capacity we actually have. And that does change as we move through life, as we move through experience, different experiences that we have and sometimes we turn around our inability to focus and to concentrate and we are able to implement some of it. Like for example this morning I did actually manage to have a herbal tea and it's done me, it's quite surprising, it's quite surprising the difference between having a herbal tea and having tea and coffee. Tea and coffee is something that I shouldn't really have. I should give it up. It's very acidic. It's my main source of hydration and yes I'd be better off with water. I don't like water. I prefer something flavoured with blackcurrant or something like that. Or even a herbal tea. So you've got to start from what you can actually do and it doesn't matter how small it is or how simple it may seem, it's something that you can stick to. Now for some people, for example if you're an alcoholic or a drug addict, you're starting from, and that has come from, you know, parental sort of inclinations or just from lifestyle. It's a very difficult thing to give up. I've known people who are alcoholics and I've been to AA meetings with them and talked to them and they have a very strange view of things. The AA meetings always seemed to me like people were boasting about how terrible their craving was, you know, doing things like sucking shoe polish because it's got some alcohol in it and then somebody would outdo that and find some other horrendous story about what they were doing. And I think sometimes people change one particular attribute or one particular addiction for another and this is very difficult. But what we're trying to do with any form of resolution, any form of resolution, no matter how small it is, is to try and implement it. You know, I've gone back to doing meditation and doing it as simply as possible. And this is something that you do regularly. I actually need to do a bit more exercise and I was starting to combine some of the time that I use for meditation for sitting Qigong. I mean, Qigong is something that is very easy to do. Also some movements that come from yoga. That's my particular way of doing things. I find that that is very helpful. And again, this is a question of being realistic. You can't spend your whole time occupied in spiritual development until you actually find a way of being mindful or being aware all the time. And we talked about this previously. So the important thing to remember is that we all have our abilities and our capacity and we have to work with those. Not try and be some form of perfection that is unattainable for us, but some form of ability and capacity that we can implement, put into practice and make some difference to ourselves, no matter how small. Anyway, that's all from me for today. Bye now.