scary close

i am a firm disbeliever in the term new year's resolutions, but i do admit that there's something about the start of a new year that has me reflecting on what i want to change about myself. Instead of making resolutions i try to find inspiration for the coming year that will challenge me throughout the year, not just that one time. Sometimes it's a verse (Isaiah 6:8 anyone?), sometimes it's a word ("perspective" comes up often in my life) and other times it's a few lines in a book that i'm reading.

The following is an excerpt from Donald Miller's book Scary Close, an amazing book that i finished reading a few days into the new year on how vulnerability and openness can deeply affect relationships. As i read these words i realized that this is how i wanted to go into the new year and a few weeks in, the words still ring true (unlike some other previously failed 'new years resolutions').

I am willing to sound dumb.
I am willing to be wrong.
I am willing to be passionate about something that isn't perceived as cool.
I am willing to express a theory.
I am willing to admit I'm afraid.
I'm willing to contradict something I've said before.
I'm willing to have a knee-jerk reaction, even a wrong one.
I'm willing to apologize.
I'm perfectly willing to be perfectly human. 
-p. 148

i love that these words aren't specific but paint a broad picture, gently pointing me in a direction that i want to be going. After all, new years resolution's are supposed to help us become better versions of ourselves and to challenge us to make changes that need to be made. i guess maybe i do believe in them after all - but i'm okay calling them by another name if that makes it more successful sounding.