This holiday season I was honored to attend a potluck at a local yoga studio. Candles encircled the room, the smell of cinnamon and hot spices all around us.  A stranger posed an interesting question, “What is worth doing?”

Many gave answers, or simply sat quietly. The stranger answered that he valued his work, the people he loved, playing the guitar, and doing yoga. “I can let the rest of it go.”

I have thought about this often in the last few days.  We are bombarded with so many distractions, so many ideas about who we should be and how we should behave. How do we plow through the quagmire and come to that place within us that knows what is worth doing, what brings us the most joy and self-respect, and what pulls us into anxiety or self judgment?

Focusing on the “should’s” is often a way to increase self criticism and lower self esteem. –I should lose weight—I should go to law school -I should make more money – I should save the world—

If one looks to the wisdom of the East: yoga, tai chi, the spiritual practices of Tao, Buddhism, Hinduism – the path to Enlightenment is not achieved by frantic conformity to what society dictates. It is achieved by first looking deeply into the concept of “achievement”. What is really possible, given ones life circumstance, talents, limitations? This does not mean being passive or lazy. Quite the opposite. It means taking an inventory of your self, looking at your environment, your reality, and asking, as the stranger asked, “what is worth doing?”  Most precisely, “What is possible for me, given that I desire a full, healthy, joyful life in community with others?”

We must all conform in obvious ways: stop at a red light, go forward on a green one, make enough money to provide food, shelter, education for our families, but this does not preclude our ability choose an attitude of peace, joy, and wisdom, in any given situation. With practice, and commitment to psychological and spiritual growth, we can learn to stand up to the negative energies in our world and ourselves. To choose serenity over anxiety, anger, self-indulgence.

Our world is struggling to overcome tragedy, violence, and pain. We cannot save the world. In our hearts we know this, but many of us desire this, more than anything.

Can we honor this desire by making a New Year’s Resolution to achieve a thriving connection with our deepest inner being? To become closer to the part of us that is strong, vulnerable, ethical? Taking the time to nourish this connection – simple steps, like stopping in the middle of a frantic day to look at a tree out the window, breathe deeply, feel the reality of our inner soul, our anima.  In this and a thousand other ways we can find meaning, and joy in a 2013 worth living.