Honolulu Star-Advertiser
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams."
– Thoreau
Copyright © 2022
by Ralph F. Couey
We measure our journey in one of two ways, by distance and by time. Every earth year, our world completes an orbit around its parent star. In that time, the planet actually travels 584 million miles. But, our sun is orbiting the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. In one of our years, that's about 4.5 billion miles. And if that weren't enough, our galaxy is racing through space, along with all the other galaxies, at about 1.3 million miles per hour. Since there's no fixed reference point in space, that actual distance traveled is kinda fuzzy. So, even when we stay at home, we're still on a journey.
But New Year's is about a journey in time, 12 months of trial, trauma, joy, and hilarity. When we reach this day on the calendar, we are anxious to put the past behind us. This is especially true given what's been going on. Three years of pandemic misery merely leads the list of the existential load we've been carrying. It's a day when we try to resolve to change the things that gifted us so much angst. That can be any number of things from weight and physical condition, patterns of life, better choices. But the bottom line is a fresh start. New Years provides a convenient launch point for this new mission. In reality, a person can make a fresh start on July 4th just as easily, but who ever heard of Independence Day Resolutions?
Author Sara Ban Breathnach wrote,
"New Year's Day. A fresh start. A new chapter in life waiting to be written. New questions to be asked, embraced, and loved. Answers to be discovered and then lived in this transformative year of delight and self-discovery. Today carve out a quiet interlude for yourself in which to dream, pen in hand. Only dreams give birth to change."
Dreams are valuable. They are the scratch pads for the designs of your life. But dreams are useless unless a person is willing to undertake real change. You know, actually work on it. To make any kind of change we have to realize that what we need and what we need to leave behind. We have things in our lives that shouldn't be there and need to go. The toughest thing is coming to grips with the reality that there are changes we don't want to make, but restrict or block our ability to grow beyond our past. We have to be willing to take out our own garbage.
In the movie "The Last Jedi," Yoda tells Luke,
"Pass on what you have learned. Strength, mastery, yes. But weakness, folly, failure also. Yes. Failure most of all. The greatest teacher failure is. Luke, we are what they grow beyond."
Everyone has at least one common thing: Things in our past of which are less than proud. Yoda's sage advice is equally applicable to us. Failure is a life lesson. We can either bury it or ignore it, or we can look it squarely in the eye and learn from it. Most misery in a person's life can be linked to the refusal to confront and learn from our mistakes and misjudgments. Yes, that's insanely difficult, and it takes courage to do that. Author Fred DeVito wrote, "If it doesn't challenge you, it doesn't change you." Change -- real change -- is supposed to be hard. We have to challenge ourselves daily, even hourly. The good news is that once we get to the other side, it is a sweet, sweet victory.
Attitude is vital in this process. Commitment as well. Understand that this is a journey in and of itself, one that requires making that promise at the start of every day to push on especially when we're tired and frustrated. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year. He is rich who owns the day."
About a year and a half ago, I entered a time where I was haunted by depression. Once an enthusiastic exerciser, I found it increasingly difficult to make that effort. Over time, I began to sleep away the hours I wasn't at work. I got help, and with that help and the constant love a support from my wife, I've made it back quite a way since then. I still struggle with fatigue, but recently I had to move some furniture around and I was shocked at how that effort exhausted me. It was, shall we say, my "Come To Jesus Moment." I don't have a thing for resolutions, but I know if I don't get back out there and walk my miles, and lift my weights, I may not be long for this world.
Will this be easy? No. But it is vitally necessary, and out of respect for my wife, children, and grandchildren, I will do this. It's kinda ironic that I couldn't be motivated by my own welfare, but by the welfare of others. But that forces me outside of the darkish box I've been it, and my thoughts outward instead of inward.
Whatever baggage any of you have brought to this moment, it is a moment that can be life-changing. And it will test you to your limits if you carry it through. Of course, then you discover that what you thought were your limits really weren't your limits. We are all capable of so much more than we think. To have faith in yourself, and block the voices of weakness and rationalization lays the groundwork. But mansions don't build themselves. We need to bend over and start moving rocks ourselves.
This is an opportunity; a moment in time. A new path lies before us.
Do we have the courage to walk it?
Happy New Year everyone. And thank you for taking the time to visit my site.
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