It’s entirely fitting this New Year begins on a Monday. Although Sunday is the official start of the week, for most working people Monday marks the beginning of the work week. Other than the fact you are probably not working today, will this week be different from the work weeks that preceded it? For all intents and purposes, the first week of the New Year is no different than previous weeks. Yet it is special. We use it to mark the passage of time. Some people view the New Year as a turning point in their lives — a chance to make a new beginning. Businesses use the New Year to establish new goals and reflect on the reasons they either met or missed past goals.
If you don’t plan on making any marked changes in your life, today simply represents another page turned in the book of life. If you plan on making changes, it could represent the beginning of entirely new book. Author Peggy Toney Horton asserts, “Each New Year, we have before us a brand new book containing 365 blank pages. Let us fill them with all the forgotten things from last year — the words we forgot to say, the love we forgot to show, and the charity we forgot to offer.” Last year did seem to be a particularly mean-spirited year. We can do better.
Rainer Maria Rilke, a 19th and early 20th century Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist, once wrote, “Let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been, full of work that has never been done, full of tasks, claims, and demands; and let us see that we learn to take it without letting fall too much of what it has to bestow upon those who demand of it necessary, serious, and great things.” There is an underlying optimism in Rilke’s thought we should all embrace. I’ve heard people say we are only given one chance at life; but, I believe life gives us numerous chances to improve and to change.
The question is: What do we do about the past? If you have ever watched a professional golf tournament, you often hear the announcers wonder how a player will react after making a bad shot. The great players seem to put the bad shots behind them and concentrate only on the task ahead. We’ve all made bad shots. How do we react? There is a difference between putting bad shots behind us and forgetting about them. Forgetting the past is not a recommended strategy. Author Mehmet Murat ildan explains, “In the New Year, never forget to thank to your past years because they enabled you to reach today! Without the stairs of the past, you cannot arrive at the future!” There are probably things in your past for which you are not thankful; but, they are part of what makes you who you are. You can move beyond mistakes, missteps, and heartaches whether you see yourself simply turning a page or writing a new volume.
Whatever you find yourself doing today, all of us at Enterra Solutions® wish you a Happy New Year.
