More than a few people have asked me already what my New Year’s Resolutions for 2010 will be. The first time someone asked me that (gi i ma’pos na mes), the first thing that popped into my head were Beatles song lyrics. But more on this later, first back to being asked about what my resolutions for the year are.

Whenever I’m asked this, my mind immediately starts to sift through my soul, my mind, my heart and picking out my different limits, faults, flaws, mistakes, vices etc, looking for a few to say I would like to do away with, improve on, or get rid of.

Having lived close to three decades by now, the aura or the importance of making resolutions for the New Year is starting to wane for me. When you find that what is supposed to be a very deeply personal experience of improvement or building your life and sustaining yourself the subject of every conceivable media form, you might want to rethink using that format to start a new year.

For this next year I’m not making any New Year’s Resolutions for myself. This is not to say that I don’t have anything I need to improve in my life or work on, there’s plenty of that, but I think that making resolutions for myself are the wrong way of doing it. It focuses on me too much, when I know by now that for happiness and a good life, you are the smallest (but still necessary) piece of that equation, the rest is up to everyone and everything else in the world.

So for me, I will be making promises to people. Individuals in my life, family members, perfect strangers, friends and so on. Life is all about the world around you and how to relate to it, and so for each new year we should make promises to people (even if they don’t know it) about how we will change or what we will do.

Secondly, I will be taking wisdom with me into the next year. Words or sentiments which aren’t so concretely tied to stuff like how much I weigh or how many cigarettes I smoke or how much time I waste blogging, but are more holistic, more philosophical and more open for interpretation. One of the problems with resolutions is that they tend to be forgotten by January 8th or 9th, and then only be remembered as a taunting failure come December 31st.

With small empe’ finayi or pieces of wisdom as I call them, even if you forget them the day after you write them down, they are not oppressive overlords which are commanding that you work out everyday or eat healthier. They are instead like small voices, which might appear or be remembered when you least expect it. You never know when they will appear to guide or help you; to influence you in choosing one thing or the other. This path in instead of that one. Yes to this instead of no.

Because I got for myself for Christmas Rock Star Band: The Beatles, and its been a fantastic diversion lately from finalizing my dissertation, worrying about money and all the military buildup craziness going on now.

I think that all the empe’ finayi that I’ll be carrying with me in this new year will be from Beatles’ lyrics. So here, just to share and help create some reflection and hope for the new year, are my five pieces of Beatles wisdom.

1. “Tomorrow Never Knows” from the album Revolver

Turn off your mind/relax and float down stream/This is not dying

Something I really need to try and remember.

2. “The End” - from the album Abbey Road

And in the end,/the love you take,/is equal to, the love,/you make

A more interesting way of talking about the golden rule.

3. “Nowhere Man” from the album Rubber Soul

He’s a real nowhere man,/Sitting in his Nowhere Land,/Making all his nowhere plans,/for nobody./Doesn’t have a point of view,/Knows not where he’s going to,/Isn’t he a bit like you and me?

Self-reflection and how most of what we see (and put down) in others is already in ourselves.

4. “Don’t Let Me Down” - from the album Let it Be

I’m in love for the first time/Don’t you know it’s gonna last/It’s a love that lasts forever/It’s a love that has no past.

The power and nature of love.

5. “In My Life” - from the album Rubber Soul

There are places I remember/All my life though some have changed/Some forever not for better/Some have gone and some remain/All these places had their moments/With lovers and friends I still can recall/Some are dead and some are living/In my life I’ve loved them all

How we all live with both memories and a memory (which we can’t always trust)

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Put fabot, na’halom i mas ya-mu na sinangan pat palabras kanta pappa’ gi i bandan comments! Please feel free to share some of your own in the comments!