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A New Year's Resolution to Change Your Life
By Richard Eyre

This will be the last deceivers/alternatives column of the year, and the shortest, and perhaps the most important!

Important because it will challenge you to make a New Year's resolution that could make 2008 a remarkable first year of the rest of your life. The recommended resolution is simple yet profound — basic, yet far reaching in its effect.

It is a two-part resolution that will help you, day by day, to pull yourself out of the deceptive allegiance most of us have to the destructive and stressful notions of "control" and "ownership" and to ease you, day by day, into the refreshing new attitudes of Serendipity and Stewardship.

What I have found is that it is one thing to understand how our devotion to control and to ownership can undermine the quality or our lives and create stress jealousy and frustration; but it is something else again to actually shed both notions and to put the alternative attitudes of Serendipity and Stewardship into play in our daily lives.

So here are my two challenges to you for the new year:

Read (or re-read) carefully the column about using a "Serendipity line" on your daily planning sheet. (Click here to go directly to that column.) Then, make a 2008 New Year's resolution to notice or discover at least two "serendipities" every day and to write them on the right side of your daily planning page.

My promise to you, if you will do this, is simple: Your desire to control will diminish, and you will gradually become better at recognizing (and welcoming) serendipities in your everyday life. This will cause you to be more grateful, more humble, and more in tune.
Read (or re-read) carefully the column about filling in three "Stewardship blanks" on your daily planning sheet. (Click here to go directly to that column.) Then, make a second 2008 New Year's resolution to decide on one "choose-to-do" for each of your three stewardships each day and to write them on the stewardship blanks before you begin to make your list of "have-to-dos"

My promise to you, if you will do this one, is equally simple: You will see the world differently, no longer coveting what others have or feeling superior to those who have less. You will gain a peace and an acceptance of, as well as deeper appreciation for what God has given you.

Now, just a couple of footnotes: First, both resolutions presuppose that you plan your day each day, in writing. You must do this to be able to implement the resolutions. Second, both resolutions must be accompanied by earnest prayer if you are to succeed with them. It is the Spirit that can reveal to you the serendipities of your life, and it is the Spirit that can help you understand that God owns all and that you are a steward over what He has given you.

Join me and thousands of other Meridian readers in making these two New Year's resolutions. The year 2008 will then be, for us all, a year of greater joy!

Closing note: Yes, there is one more alternative to one more deceiver. I have not urged a resolution on the third alternative of Synchronicity, because our explanation of it is not complete. Be here next week for more on this third attitude. Send comments to Richard@meridianmagazine.com