This year, I got a whiteboard for the wall of my home office. I intend to track my New Year’s goals on it, hoping that its visibility reminds me to work on these goals all year long.

Because I had just told my 14-year-old son that I would not drive him to the mall until he cleaned a bathroom, I told myself I could not put the new whiteboard up until I had cleaned up my office.

Before this ultimatum, my office looked like a disorganized yard sale of children’s backpacks, orphan gloves and partially-completed paperwork.

After an entire afternoon of purging and sorting, it looks like a slightly tidier yard sale.

I long for my brain and life to be as organized as my silverware drawer, with everything in its own designated compartment, waiting to be used and appreciated, then carefully returned to its perfect spot.

But life is a lot more nuanced than that, and the best I can do is a white board divided into color-coded sections for different goals.

Never mind that the desk underneath the whiteboard is still medium-cluttered. We’re going for progress, not perfection.

As I have listened to people discuss and contemplate goals for the new year, I keep hearing a theme of shame. It’s like folks not only want to become an entirely new person, but they are ashamed to admit they ever were who they were in 2022.

I’ve got lots of baggage I’d like to distance myself from—still cringing over foolish things I said and did in my teen years, here—but I’m skeptical that shame is the best motivator for genuine self-improvement.

Shame doesn’t really motivate us to do anything except slink away and hide.

And really, from a Christian perspective, shame shouldn’t be our focus. Shame is not the same as humility or gratitude. If we’re meant to be rejoicing in Jesus’ saving sacrifice for us, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to walk around feeling crummy we can’t be perfect every minute. It’s not as if God is surprised by our shortcomings, anyway. The imperfection of humanity, and even our own, specific, individual imperfections, are old news to Him.

So what if we turned some of our professed Christianity inward, and greeted the new year with genuine love and gratitude? We’ve made it this far and learned this much; hooray for another day, another chance to try again.

We get to hold our own measuring sticks as we determine if we’re doing our best each day, and we also get to be gentle with ourselves. Our “best” can vary depending on how much we’re required to handle, and as we’re gentle with ourselves, we can be gentle with others, too.

Gentle generosity with ourselves is not the sort of thing that’s easy to keep track of on a chart or whiteboard, but it’s a habit worth working on. It might even be better than new office supplies.

Contact Sally at ordinarywitness@hotmail.com.