We are in the home stretch of the year. I don’t know about you, but I am ready for the year to turn. I was so hopeful at the end of last year; I’m afraid I’m a bit more cynical this year.
The New Year is a traditional time to start with a clean slate. We need to remember that we can start fresh any time we want. We can consider each day a fresh start.
I prefer the phrase “fresh start” to “start over” because the latter feels like taking the same journey, and I’m at a point in my life where I don’t want to repeat, I want to expand and divert.
Over on my Goals, Dreams, and Resolutions blog, I have questions to ask yourself as you prepare for 2022. I also have a post on remembering the joy of the season, and re-shaping your traditions so they have meaning to your life.
Sometimes, you can simply expand your life and work to make room for something new; often, you have to let go of what’s not working so that you can make room for what will.
Letting go isn’t about negating everything you did and were; it’s about releasing the pain and blocks associated with bad choices, or things that didn’t work out the way you hoped.
Part of letting go is letting in. If we let go and then put up a barricade, how can something new and wonderful come in?
Everything in our past helped get us to this moment. So while we let go of what no longer works (or even actively hurts) us, make room to let in something new and wonderful, we can still build on our pasts to create a brighter future.
We learn as much or more from what didn’t work as from what did.
By learning lessons and applying them, we build something stronger, on both physical and emotional levels.
One of the things that annoys me in some series (be it books or on screen) is characters who repeat the same mistakes. This often happens in comedy, or in comic mysteries. The character always has the same disaster. The first time, we might laugh WITH the character, but from there on out, we laugh AT the character. If, a half a dozen books in, the character hasn’t learned from previous mistakes and CHOOSES to make the same mistakes over and over again, I lose both patience and respect for that character.
That’s not someone with whom I’d spend time in life, so why would I waste time with them in fiction?
Because I believe we can create art that changes the world for the better, I like to put my creative energy into stories that do that; I like to work with businesses that have a vision of creating something wonderful that goes beyond making corporate profits; I like to spend my leisure time with characters who learn and grow.
It gets me out of those stuck places, and reminds me that positive actions and words make a difference.
So let go, let in, and build.
Have a wonderful holiday season, and we’ll catch up again in January!