Looking past Christmas gives me hope

It's Christmas Eve. Where I live it is still morning. So, Christmas has not yet begun. Advent has several hours to go. Looking past Christmas, which always gives me hope, I started thinking today about my annual year-end self-inventory. Hope is what permits me to move ahead.

I have to say, 2019 has been a good year on the whole. Probably my best year since 2015, which was magical.

I must admit, I kind of lost the bubble about 2/3rds through this year, which has made the last quarter tough. But I daresay, I am happier and healthier this year than I was a year ago. I made a momentous decision on 26 December last year that has stuck. It's a decision I'd made before and then wavered on. Apart from my daily walking routine, it's the best decision I've made in a long time.

2019 has been a year of change. Frankly, despite my wariness of change, I needed some. Another notable thing is that, quite unexpectedly, literally out-of-the-blue one afternoon in August, I reconnected profoundly with someone I care about deeply.

As always, there are some changes I want to make and a few I need to make. There's a big commitment I've been asked to consider undertaking. On the one hand, it's something I really want to do. On the other hand, it's a big job and a great opportunity, which kind of makes me shudder when I think what it might mean in terms of stress and time commitment. If I do it, I will need to continue honing my time-management skills, which, if I may say, have gotten pretty good over the last few years. Time-management, however, is one of those areas you never master completely. The reason is, like budgeting money, you have to maintain the discipline to follow your plan, especially when it starts to feel like a grind.

Among my goals in 2020 are to see my doctoral dissertation published as a book, which looks promising at this point. A second goal is to develop, submit, and have approved a proposal for a second book, which would be collaboratively written. I want to lose more weight and strengthen my core. After my spiral late this year, I want to get back to healthy eating. As I now know from experience, eating healthily is necessary not only for my physical health but also for my mental and emotional well-being, too.

In 2020, I want to resume my practice of centering prayer, spending more time in silence and doing so daily. I want to continue praying a complete Rosary (five decades) daily, as well as maintain my commitment to Morning and Evening Prayer, something I vowed to do at my ordination. I also would like to resume my practice of the Examen each evening. I also need to return more whole-heartedly to the spiritual discipline of fasting and to monthly confession (I was probably about quarterly in 2019.

I have a goal to lead three Bible studies: one on Ruth and Jonah over Easter, one on the Letter to the Hebrews during the summer, and, next Advent, on the Servant Songs of Isaiah. I also want to get back to family picnics and relaxing days in different parks after Mass on Sundays once the weather is warmer.

All of this are just things I am pondering, It remains to prayerfully nail-down what goals I am actually going to set and pursue. Sharing these here makes them a bit more real and to see what would need to change to set and set to achieve these goals.