We live day-to-day, hour-to-hour, sometimes even minute-to-minute. And then, if we’re lucky, one day … BOOM it’s a ‘new year’! The environment around us starts blowing up with new years resolutions, new ideas for change, commitments we can make, and lives we can change. Our media outlets become inundated with pledges to change, to renew, to shed off old layers…to become better than we were before. You name it, exercise plans, fad diets, fashion trends, new self-help books, money saving schemes, relationship fixers… as a culture, we tell ourselves that this time, this year, 2015, this will be the year we will make the change, and accomplish it all. Somehow, though… and perhaps I’m a bit cynical, but somehow I feel well… the same. I don’t feel new, or old, I just feel like me.
I feel happy, healthy and right where I am meant to be in this moment, here and now. However, I get an uneasy feeling when I am bombarded with the pressure to make a big change. I don't have this overwhelming want to make a change, and at times, I feel guilty because of it. What’s wrong with me, am I becoming stagnant? Complacent? But then I think, what’s wrong with the way I am? The way you are? … flaws and all. I think this is what makes us all so beautiful.
Don’t get me wrong, I am a strong believer in self-study, and improvement, but I believe these types of changes come from deep within, not on any special day, or year, or month. Often times, these changes are minute, even microscopic to the self-critical eye that so many of us judge ourselves with.
Retrospectively, I realize how hard coming to this realization has been for me. My entire life, my years were marked by some big change, or big moment, a goal of some sort, without which I felt lost. I couldn’t function without feeling like I had made some significant improvement.
So, this year, my hope for myself as well as all of you is that we find the clarity to relish in the simple moments, to be thankful to our bodies for each step it allows us to take and to our minds for each thought we are allowed to think. My hope is, that as we build on each step and each thought, we don’t get lost in this culture of always needing to change. Sometimes it is okay to just be. Without even realizing it, we are changing every single day, growing stronger, wiser, more resilient. Take refuge in that, please. Trust yourself, your body, your mind… and stop waiting for the change. THIS IS THE CHANGE. Right now, this moment, don’t let it pass you by fighting so hard to become a person that you think you want to be next year. After all, your idea of that may change as well.
“A string of ordinary days makes for an extraordinary life”
I feel happy, healthy and right where I am meant to be in this moment, here and now. However, I get an uneasy feeling when I am bombarded with the pressure to make a big change. I don't have this overwhelming want to make a change, and at times, I feel guilty because of it. What’s wrong with me, am I becoming stagnant? Complacent? But then I think, what’s wrong with the way I am? The way you are? … flaws and all. I think this is what makes us all so beautiful.
Don’t get me wrong, I am a strong believer in self-study, and improvement, but I believe these types of changes come from deep within, not on any special day, or year, or month. Often times, these changes are minute, even microscopic to the self-critical eye that so many of us judge ourselves with.
Retrospectively, I realize how hard coming to this realization has been for me. My entire life, my years were marked by some big change, or big moment, a goal of some sort, without which I felt lost. I couldn’t function without feeling like I had made some significant improvement.
So, this year, my hope for myself as well as all of you is that we find the clarity to relish in the simple moments, to be thankful to our bodies for each step it allows us to take and to our minds for each thought we are allowed to think. My hope is, that as we build on each step and each thought, we don’t get lost in this culture of always needing to change. Sometimes it is okay to just be. Without even realizing it, we are changing every single day, growing stronger, wiser, more resilient. Take refuge in that, please. Trust yourself, your body, your mind… and stop waiting for the change. THIS IS THE CHANGE. Right now, this moment, don’t let it pass you by fighting so hard to become a person that you think you want to be next year. After all, your idea of that may change as well.
“A string of ordinary days makes for an extraordinary life”