“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.” ~ T. S. Eliot
Happy New Year everyone! So long 2016—the year of Trump, of plummeting trust and fractured dreams and increased tensions.
I am glad to leave it behind.
Yet, I remain tirelessly optimistic, relentlessly so.
It is a scientific fact that from death emerges life: energy doesn’t disappear, it transmutes, it evolves, it reemerges elsewhere. Just as another senseless tragedy erupts, there surfaces a story of hope from somewhere across the globe that touches and uplifts us.
After all, how you interpret the events of the world, and your own life, is a choice. You can make data say anything you want depending upon your perspective. Ask any good accountant.
So I choose hope and resolve and goodness and light. I invite you to do the same. Not because it’s what we see and hear everyday, and certainly not because it’s in the news, or even true, but rather because the choice itself produces proof of the perspective.
Perhaps you, as I, rewound the year in your mind at some point during the last week. What were the highpoints, the low points, the lessons? What were your accomplishments, shortcomings, or omissions? What do you want for 2017? Perhaps you even made a list of resolutions, always a fine way of formalizing your intentions.
I did the same, pulling out a pen and pad, I thought for a moment and then jotted down the first things that came to my mind. Rather than a list of things to do, they turned out to be responses to these questions:
- What do I want to give up?
- What do I want to take on?
- What do I want to learn?
- What do I want to change?
I won’t share my answers. TMI. But I suggest those categories as an effective format for forging the kind of 2017 you’d like the year to become for you both personally and professionally.
Because it’s never too late to write a new story.
It’s never too late to turn the page.
