I’m looking out at the newly falling snow and trying to hear the voice within. With January 1st around the corner, the voices around me are getting so loud. About “new year new me”, or “I’m finally going to get fit” or about how this time of the year is such a sham. And something inside me is groaning with discontent.
I wrote a piece on resolutions last year, if you’re interested in that you can find it here. I stand by that perspective. But in this year something completely different seems to be arising in the people all around me: the question of if it will be a good year.
What does your year hold?
It breaks my heart to think that this will not be a good year for some, although I know it’s true. And yet there is very little we can do to predict that in advance. But I think that ultimately there is one principle we can follow to make this new year one of the better ones in our life, and it involves work.
You see, we don’t have control over what life throws at us. And this might be the year that you lose someone or something important, you struggle with your health or finances. It might be the year that you never want to look back on again. But if you can take the lessons you learn to heart and transform through it, when you come out the other side, you will be proud of what you’ve made of yourself.
It’s true, our lives are largely what we make of them. We can choose to let the pressure melt and mold us or we can choose to crack and stay broken. And when we take our challenges and go at them with the best we can possibly muster, we’ll grow and improve. When we do that consistently, the change is lasting.
What makes a good year
I’m not ashamed of the years that I was struggling most as a person, or the years when I was so incredibly immature. I’m ashamed of the years that I stubbornly resisted change and growth because I was lazy or scared of the unknown.
You can never know what’s coming ahead of you. So improve yourself in order to prepare for the new challenges, but also so that you can look back and be proud of how far you’ve come. Strive to be more skilled, wise, patient and kind.
I think the people who are most satisfied with their performance aren’t the ones who hit their goals every single time, but the ones who put in their best effort consistently and can see the slow progress they made.
You can do this!
So if you’re planning a new year’s resolution or currently undergoing a big life change, I’m proud of you. But if you’re just a person living your life the best you can, trying to be better, guess what? I’m proud of you too. You don’t have to see this new year as a clean slate if you don’t want. But give your life, your existence, and your improvement the proper respect they deserve.
Remember that you carry within you great power to change yourself. Your reactions to life, your habits in the long term. Remember that the one thing you can’t get back is time, so try to make use of it now while it’s passing you by.
Will this year be a good one? If that’s what you make of it. So be the slow and steady force of transformation, improvement, healing and love- I dare you.
