simplicity

Happy New year!
The eve of the first full day of 2015. How did that happen so fast? Haven't we just had a millennium?
So how does a clean page begin in a new year?
Not one full of resolutions to ultimately break or fail at that's for sure. That's never been a good start.
I do like to keep lists and make thought bubbles on paper.
I also like to try to start the year with a challenge or two in mind. Sometimes it  might be a physical challenge other times it may be a spiritual or development challenge or a mix of all three as it is this year.
This year I do have a list of achievable goals, not resolutions because none of them are things that are new to me exactly, this is more a list to remind me of ways to deepen a more conscious lifestyle.

DEVELOPMENTAL
I have for sometime now had an interest in living life in a much simpler way. I get ground down by technology and consumerism and wish life was just plainer and easier. I have read lots of books on the subject and realise that this lies with me to find my way and not on seeking to alter things I simply cannot change. Living simply is about finding ways that makes my life more simple and peaceable. To give up many things I don't need is one thing, but to give up things out of a stern sense of duty or some misguided need to conform to a strict set of rules will cause dissatisfaction, ultimately giving no peace or simplicity in my life at all. So, rather than binning all my worldly things and going to live in a hut without any running water, my challenge will be for all future things:
1. Do I really need it?
2. Could I borrow it?
3. Could I make it/mend it/recycle it?

Simplicity is also about our actions; ways we can connect more, relate more, be calmer with each other. Ways I'm thinking to incorporate this is to have one weekend  month that we turn off the TV on a Saturday evening and play board games with our kids, bring back our family reader, bring back our Sunday hikes and start going to meetings.

SPIRITUAL
This last statement relates to the fact that I have been wanting, for quite sometime now, to attend our local Quaker meetings. Our boys attend a Quaker school and we have found their outlook on many things so incredibly compatible to our own. I was christened in the Church of England but have never really been a church goer. I am not going to use this space to say anything about the Church of England, suffice to say, it just never felt what we were seeking. Recently Mr Beehive said he also wanted to attend, so this is our second goal for this year.

PHYSICAL
Finally after feeling like I have become a Christmas pudding I am determined not to lose the fitness I have built up over this year. I will continue to try to run one race a month and also do park run as often as I can. Mr Beehive and two of our friends have decided to walk the 50km Thames Path challenge in September. If we feel suitably comfortable with the achievement, we may extend that to the 100km walk next year. For now, goals are to be scored not missed, so baby steps it is.

What are your goals for this fresh new year?