new year's resolutions | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Failing Better: A New Year’s Resolution, of sorts

Anita Mathias — Wed, 11 Jan 2017 20:58:18 +0000

Christ Church, Oxford University Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better. Samuel Beckett So it’s a New Year…2017. I love this hopeful period of looking back on the past year, and considering how to revise my life in the new year. I love its promise, a sheet of new fallen […]

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On “Defining Decisions” Rather Than New Year’s Resolutions

Anita Mathias — Sat, 09 Jan 2016 12:03:08 +0000

Image Credit Mark Batterson, in The Circle-Maker, a fascinating book on a prayer, praises “defining decisions,” that set the course of your life, sort of like choosing whether you drive to Slovenia (which our family did last summer), or to Scotland (which we might do this summer). I made three defining decisions in my twenties. […]

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New Year’s Resolutions, 2014 : A Long Obedience in the Same Direction

Anita Mathias — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 17:40:03 +0000

“The essential thing “in heaven and in earth” is that there should be long OBEDIENCE in the same direction, there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living; for instance, virtue, art, music, dancing, reason, spirituality– anything whatever that is transfiguring, refined, foolish, or divine.” Nietzsche, […]

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