Tag: New Year

Or Will You Be Just Another Year Older?

Or Will You Be Just Another Year Older?

One year from today is going to happen.

A lot can happen in the next 365 days. Or, nothing can happen in the next 365 days.

Those hopes and dreams, that big idea, the goals and intentions?

The person you tell yourself you want to become?

Not gonna happen on their own.

Time really doesn’t care what you do with it. It doesn’t care about those hopes and dreams and the person you tell yourself you want to become.

One year from today you can be one year closer to living a life more aligned with your purpose and vision. Or you can remain dormant and wonder where the hell the past year went.

One year from today, will you be more than just another year older?

Photo by Kate Williams on Unsplash

You’re Stronger Than You Think You Are

You’re Stronger Than You Think You Are

We did it.

We got through the year we never could have expected to have happened.

So much loss on so many different levels.

But we made it through. We are still here.

If this past year has taught us anything it’s that we are far more resilient than we probably expected we were. If we were told last January what we’d be facing in the coming year I’d suggest many of us would have questioned our ability to get through it.

But we did.

Resiliency is a painful life lesson only life gets to teach us. When going through the wall isn’t ideal but it’s the only option you have. This past year has been quite a wall.

There are still walls in front of us, some pandemic related and others not. A new year doesn’t simply reset the challenges of life. Perhaps, though, we’d serve ourselves well in reflecting upon exactly what we’ve been through and see that yes, we are far more resilient than we may have given ourselves credit for.

Perhaps a small victory, but a rather important one.

Time Really Doesn’t Care What You Do With It

Time Really Doesn’t Care What You Do With It

I hadn’t thought of it quite this way.

Just six weeks left.

It’s mid November and the year is coming to an end. Six weeks and it will be the start of a new year. It will also be the start of a new decade.

That’s the part which stunned me a bit.

Where did the last ten years go?

Most of the time I never think about time. The busy-ness of life often keeps my mind on what’s right in front of me. And the next thing you know a full decade has come to an end.

It’s interesting to look back at the decades of your life and reflect and remember what life felt like back then, what you did, or what you didn’t do. The victories and the defeats, the joys and the pains. A common denominator of the decades of my life is that the decades sort of just happened, simply unfolding in the way that they did. Kinda feels for the most part I was in many ways just going along for the ride.

Having collected many decades myself, being reminded that this one is coming to a close has surprisingly stirred things up within me. As I look back at the past 10 years there is a sense that I could have done better. Done better in the sense of showing up with far more intention and presence. It was a decade of transitions on many levels, but my initial assessment is that life during these last 10 years was more reactionary than intentional. Behold the glory of hindsight and experience and looking back in time and seeing how things could have been.

A younger, less-evolved version of me would have used this awareness against me. I can so vividly see that version of me calling me out for not making the most of those years, even though I have no idea exactly what making the most of those years actually would have looked like. Sometimes we can really hold ourselves to such unrealistic expectations, can’t we?

With my new found reality that I’m six weeks away from a brand new decade, I’m giving serious pause and envisioning what I want to become and accomplish and experience in the coming ten years. For the first time I’m setting clear intentions for myself going forward into the new decade, no longer content of just seeing where time will take me.

The next ten years are going to happen regardless of how I chose to show up for them. Time is indifferent. Time doesn’t care if in ten years I’m looking back wishing I had spent them differently.

That’s not a conversation I intend on having with myself in November 2029.

What are your intentions for the next ten years? What will be your priority? What do you plan to become and accomplish and experience?

The life you want isn’t just going to happen.

It’s a great day to be you!

Buddha, Red Meat, And A Salad Fork

Buddha, Red Meat, And A Salad Fork

So, how do I not eat meat?

For a full year?

New Year’s Day for me falls in October. Because that’s my birth month. I’ve started getting far more intentional about what I want to accomplish in the 12 months between birthdays. Far too many years have come and gone and the only thing I got was older.

I don’t want to just be older.

This past year the goal was to do 20,000 push-ups, which worked out to be 55 push-ups per day, every day, for 365 days. I still don’t really know why I wanted to do it. I guess the Continue reading “Buddha, Red Meat, And A Salad Fork” →

Santa’s Most Precious Gift Is Never Found Under A Tree

Santa’s Most Precious Gift Is Never Found Under A Tree

“No one ever loses their Christmas spirit…they just misplace it.” – Santa

I had a rather impromptu conversation with Santa at an event at my daughter’s school earlier this week. The topic? Christmas spirit. It seems like many people find the holidays to be less than joyful, more “no, no, no” than “ho, ho, ho”, and I wanted to get his take on the matter.

The loss of Christmas spirit goes beyond just having far too many things to do to get ready for the holidays. It’s much deeper for some, sometimes quite painful, the memories of what used to be, the reminders of what never was, the people who’ve gone and the emptiness now left behind. Sometimes witnessing the joy others experience during the holidays provides us with the contrast which only intensifies the emptiness and the lack of joy we feel is missing from our own lives.

I’ve been examining my own Christmas spirit of late and I see I, too, have let the joyous light of the spirit of the season grow dim within me. Not intentionally, but the light isn’t shining as brightly as it once did. I do remember when Christmas was a time of awe and wonder, of magical possibilities, of I’m-so-excited-I-can’t-even-sleep kind of excited, of joyous expectations! Continue reading “Santa’s Most Precious Gift Is Never Found Under A Tree” →

Lessons Learned from the $1,011.05 Cup of Coffee

Lessons Learned from the $1,011.05 Cup of Coffee

“Large iced coffee, decaf, black, extra ice please.”

“That will be $1,011.05. Please drive up.”

The morning drive-thru dialog between me and the faceless through-the-speaker voice of the server at Dunkin’ Donuts. It’s the morning ritual, the accidental habit with a $2.77 cost per day. Fiscally insignificant on a daily basis. But when you repeat a fiscally insignificant transaction 365 days a year the dollars do add up.

$1,011.05 in this case.

This isn’t a post about frugality. It’s about becoming aware of how significant the seemingly insignificant actually is. And with our awareness comes our opportunity to make subtle, relatively Continue reading “Lessons Learned from the $1,011.05 Cup of Coffee” →