Let’s ring in the New Year!

This past weekend I celebrated the Jewish New Year. The Jewish New Year is very similar to the secular New Year; it gives everyone an opportunity to start his or her year over. I’m not an extremely religious person but as I understand it G-d opens the “Book of Life” after the New Year and evaluates who will be written in it. Yom Kippur (the following week) Jewish people atone for their sins by fasting and then G-d transcribes the names and closes the book, our fates sealed inside. Every New Year we have the opportunity to reflect on what type of people we are and what we can do to be even better. Every year I make goals for what I would like to do differently, note I say goals instead of resolutions. My goals are usually about how I’d like to gossip less, judge less, listen more, etc. As the New Year begins and my goals are at the forefront, I make the changes to be the person I want to be. As the year progresses, I notice I go back to my old ways. It reminds me of the theory of Pavlov’s dog. The owner rang the bell, the dog became conditioned to respond when he heard the bell. How does anyone truly break his or her bad habits? Even a dog can get conditioned to his old ways! As I have previously mentioned, I am unsure about attending my high school reunion. I am apprehensive because I feel that I have grown and changed so much since I was an insecure, uncertain little girl and I’m afraid I will revert back to that old person. That leads me to believe that somewhere along the way (college, early 20s independence, marriage, parenthood) I was able to change some old habits and grow away from the person I didn’t want to be and become the person I’m happier with. If I was able to do that, why can’t I become the person that I atone to become on the high holidays? Is the difference that the changes I have made since high school were apart of growing up and not a conscious change? If that’s the case, what’s my fear in attending my reunion? If it were a conscious change, then can’t I consciously stop my judgmental nature? Or my desire to gossip? Or is it possible that I may intellectually recognize that these are flaws in my personality but emotionally not willing to give up these vices? Regardless every year is the same, I am hoping G-d will look past these vices and inscribe me in the book of life (as well as my family) and I will start one day at a time changing these bad behaviors. As for the reunion, I think I’m going to go and add “avoid being insecure” to my list of goals for the New Year.