One more day and it will be a brand new year, another opportune time to begin again. I love the period between this day and the very first day of the new year as it helps me identify and mark good intentions. New cycles are jump started by the contents of my mind and heart. I have a choice to be caught up in the frenzy of traditions -- celebrations, family get-togethers, dinners with friends, making noise (lots of it) and miss out on the gift this period offers.
Or i can choose to set a time to make an inventory of this year's victories and failures, examine how i have become a better (or worse) person, how i might have grown or withered in character.
Yearly i gallantly set personal goals and plans, write them down on a new journal -- this one has to be special and not just your ordinary notebook -- this ranges from the usual attempt to keep physically fit, lose weight, exercise more, eat healthy...the works. Then the harder part: work on my character. This takes a lot of courage and honesty to look into, humility to accept, and a whole lot of faith to even start.
My batting average is honestly bleak. I start the whole fitness regimen for a couple of months on and off. And on. And off. And i am back for the next year with the same goal. As to character, there is still so much to shed off it can be overwhelming. Take neediness for one. I do not even want my closest friends to know that somehow i hurt inside for my perceived lack of attention from them. Is that not pathetic? Yet surely that is self-inflicted.
But i will never be deterred from trying.
I accept this gift of new beginnings. I welcome this new cycle.
