Introduction

Screw resolutions. It has become abundantly clear that having a newborn is not the time to try to begin new routines. I am pretty much a slave to HER routine, and therefore all my goals for the day take a backseat. I am overcome with excitement if I get a load of laundry done and completely ecstatic if we make it to baby yoga on time. Newborns are murderers of productivity and I am only frustrating myself by saying I will do this or do that... Nope. I'm done with the productivity-oriented goal setting.

Holocaust survivor and psychologist Victor Frankl says we can not choose our circumstances, but we can always choose our attitude (paraphrased, of course). So instead of loosing my mind over chores unfinished or mentally kicking myself for failing at my New Year's resolutions already, I have decided that productivity will not be the point. My attitude surrounding it will.

Now for those of you who are just naturally happy and see the glass half full (that would be YOU, Eneagram 7!!) let me explain that how this is actually a challenge for us melancholics (For those of you who know the Eneagram- I'm a 4). We not only see a half-empty glass, we question the purpose of the glass in the first place. Surely a thermos would have been better if we had only planned ahead. Or we negate the need for the glass- I don't care if it's half empty, I didn't want a drink anyway! Or we just hurl the glass at the nearest wall and say "Fuck it!" We are chronically disappointed, not because we hate everything, but because we have in mind an ideal of how things should be and reality never seems to come close to our ideal. We're not pessimists, we're idealists. And this surrounding world and all it's cacophony is a horrible substitute for the beauty and art that is in our minds.

So, out with the unrealistic expectations of achieving this or that, and on to a renewal of the mind of sorts. I already have some books picked out to aid in this endeavor, I'll publish that list in a following post. I understand that the real work of renewing my mind will be through meditation and prayer. I have been avoiding both (more on that later), so this will be quite the upset, and quite the journey.

I titled this blog "Redemption of a Cynic" probably four years ago and never actually added any posts. Maybe this was some sort of foreshadow to the journey I would need to take later on. Or maybe I just was't cynical enough back then, and now I fit the bill. Either way, I shall take my gracious readers along with me towards my redemption.