A New Year!

We are the living witnesses to this new year. I and you, are fortunate. Whatever inner turmoil we face, we have a place to sleep, access to food, not facing any immediate threat to our lives. There are so many people out there who cannot say that about their situation. I don’t know about you, but I am taking a moment to hug myself and feel gratitude.

I am counting my blessings. I live with the love of my life, and I brush away the fifty years that I did not have that pleasure. And yet, I have also been blessed to have shared bringing four other creatures into being who, with their appearance, have yielded a multitude of joys. Maybe they can recount occasions when my behavior has warranted these awards. Or not. Don’t we have to leave those judgements to others? And we reap what we have sown.

You, out there, have your own equations to examine, your own stories to contemplate, your own accomplishments and afflictions to unravel. We are in a state of being, and cannot help calling ourselves to account. Most of us avoid it if we can; we are all so busy with the business of living and the challenges we face are so pressing. Who has this time to contemplate our navels? But in the still dark hours of the night many of us face this compulsion to face an accounting.

Looking back, I am astounded at how little notice I took of the passing parade as I marched on my way. I was so intent on getting on with whatever it was I was doing that I missed most of the detail.

When people with whom I spent some of my years recount shared events, my memory is cloudy or else totally bereft of detail. Was I sleepwalking through my life? Or was I concentrating on other things? I know that my focus is usually so strong on what is going on in my head that I can be totally oblivious of things around me. It may be that I missed a lot of the color of events in my life that others can recall. Maybe that was a mistake that I can appreciate only now?

 I always thought my ability to focus was an advantage? Is that something you think about, should think about, being really present when with the people around you? We can only do something about our futures, having little or no control about our pasts.

So, I’m thinking about the new year. Well, I can’t help but think about past events in deciding what I want to do in the immediate future. In thinking about next year, there are some things I want to avoid doing this next year that I did last year. Yes, I do want to be more present whenever I am physically present. That seems like a very good idea.

Have I noticed that our present seems overly filled with turmoil? If it isn’t man-made events it is nature on the warpath offering recompense for our past sins. Have you noticed that too?

 Maybe our presents are always that way and we do our best to ignore that other stuff and concentrate on the puddle we are in. It’s harder to do these days. We receive instant news from around the world through the media in ways we never did in earlier times. This is the nature of the life we inhabit in the days we are living. You and me just have to suck it up.

I want to reach out more often to the people whose lives are important to me. We are all getting on, and things happen. I try to write to them on a regular basis and sometimes they answer me. I think I will continue to try and contact them more even if they don’t answer me. Yes, that’s a good idea.

What else do I want to do next year? The truth is that I am arrogant about my past accomplishments, and to a degree I am content with them. But, always, I find I am still greedy for glory, always thinking of what more I could do to feed my ego with heroic accomplishments. Is everybody like that? Or, are most people content to let sleeping dogs lie? Well, we are what are and there’s no help for it.

What do you want to do this next year?

Happy New Year!