From the excellent Hark! A vagrant.
In the biblical book of Matthew, we’re asked: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust/mote/speck in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the log/beam/plank in your own eye?”
The answer is obvious, isn’t it? It’s easier. It’s always easier to give expert advice on other people’s problems than to sort out one’s own life.
Does that make me a hypocrite?
Well, according to the bible – yes. But let’s quickly skip over that and on to the part where what you’re about to read is actually gentle benevolence from which you all will benefit. So buckle up. Here is YOUR list of new year’s resolutions…
1. Feed your brain – Subscribing to Brain Pickings – A library of cross-disciplinary interestingness and combinatorial creativity – where else will you learn about what is love or the sleep habits of great writers?
2. No limits just epiphanies – That’s a lyric from this song Best Day of My Life by American Authors.
3. Expand your musical tastes – Subscribe to the World Music blog.
4. Get more kooky clever funniness in your life from Hark! A Vagrant.
5. Or just a quick smile from I Know I Made You Smile. (And he’s got a book out too!)
6. Trying looking at things differently – with the help of Variations on Normal http://variationsonnormal.com/
7. Ask for me help – If you’re lucky you’ll get it from guys like these guys. I’ve been helping a small boy do something amazing and these guys helped a lot with the campaign…
Grannymar and Fionn from Autistic and Proud and Emma and her adventures of an unfit mother and Polo in Ireland
Maxie and Laurie and Barbara by the sea in the USA
Icewolves of Europa and Life in the Slow Lane and Swazi at Chocolate is not the Only Fruit in Great Britain.
8. Make more effort to appreciate those other people who help you, who you might have temporarily forgotten. (OK, that’s aimed mainly at myself. No list is ever complete without it’s omissions. Or in other ways, no list is ever complete. Hmm… that’s sounds resonantly philosophical.)
9. Never be daunted. Something good might happen. Especially if you wait till the end.
10. Try to avoid the mother of all hangovers descending upon you – starting with tomorrow. Or more properly, tonight.
What’s that you say? Still not satisfied? Oh, you want to know what I’ll be doing while you’re benefiting from all that sage advice. Bit of carpentry probably. I have this huge beam I need to whittle down a little.
Happy new year.
Blackwatertown 
Happy whittling and may you whistle while you work. Make 2014 a good’un!
RE above: are you a whittler too? I carve chess pieces style primitive Celtic art soldiers 5″ height of walnut or cherry(google – carl dagostino – all you need is a sharp knife…..). Thank you for the shout out. It is 10:48 AM here in Miami so there’s still 2013 left here. Happy New Year.
I don’t do resolutions either. Please join me for SERENDIPITOUS LIVING in the New Year http://wp.me/pP1C5-1f8
Wishing you serenity in 2014
Bet my beam/plank/log is bigger than yours! Big enough for me not to have noticed the speck in yours anyway. May have to timetable in some whittling time of my own, or just subscribe to the World Music blog instead 🙂
I rather resent the implication in your first comment that I may have a log/beam/plank in my eye when, of course it is obvious to any objective observer that I am perfect and thus can point out authoritatively all the above in other people’s optics.
Apart from that, I liked No 1; no, not the brain feeding bit but the expression ‘combinatorial creativity’. When I feel the urge as Gilbert would say, “to shine in the high aesthetic line as a man of culture rare” I can regurgitate it. The fact that I do not know what it means is not too important as my listeners probably shall not either and they are not going to show their abject ignorance by querying it with me.
Have a Happy New Year, perhaps filled with combinatorial creativity…see, there I have used it already.
The one that particularly strikes me is “Look at things differently.” It’s very easy to see things in the same stale, obvious way day after day and never see them in a new light or from a different perspective. I shall try to look at everything with fresh eyes for a while.
Many decades ago, I made a new year resolution never to make any any more and I have succeeded. But your list is a new ball game all the way. And thanks for the mention.
I have never made a new year’s resolution, HH but really relate to number nine. Happy New Year! Hope 2014 is good to you and your family.
blessings ~ maxi
I can’t say my advice is expert but it sounds good to me. I didn’t make any resolutions. I just wanna stay warm for now.
Great bit of advice, and writing here…
I can humbly see from this where I personally
need to make resolve in many areas of my life
this new year. Or, well, I probably “Could” see
them. If it weren’t for this LOG-TRUCK sticking out
of my eye. Thanks for the reminder.
Happy New Year!
Somehow I fell off receiving your wonderful messages, and I found I miss your brightness and all other abundant good qualities. I have been off my WP long enough now to have to rehab myself in use. My dear Bill was ill; quickly and mercifully and died Nov 19, 2014; I have found safe havens all over the place and am filled with gratitude. Had some hairy adventures too; soon I hope to blast Sorry Gnat across the pond again; meanwhile, total best wishes.
Hello there! Loving your content stay strong!
Cool,
Elsa