Dread or optimism? It’s possible to find either of these moods emerging as we approach New Year’s Day. Will 2023 be better or worse than 2022? And for whom? Perhaps these aren’t the best questions with which to enter a new year.
What would go into making 2023 truly new for us? This would call for a dynamic and very intentional mindset on our part. It might begin with asking ourselves, “What onerous baggage do I carry forward from year to year?” “Why can’t I put it down and leave it behind?” “How can I let it go, once and for all?”
It would certainly help to examine and name what negative attitudes, fear-rooted behaviors, biases (for and against), self-centered inclinations and/or destructive habits that burden me and wear me down. Having done a thorough review of our life, then it’s a matter of coming to clarity and certainty that these accretions that have covered me over the years like slimy moss, are preventing me from living as freely, fully alive, as loving as I really would prefer to live.
The steps are: become aware of what feels bad about how we are living, recognize our deeper desire to become a better version of our self, ask for God’s help (we cannot do this solo!) to let go of any and all that is pulling us down or causing us to go around in circles year after year like a hamster on a wheel, and choose the newness of life that is waiting for us. We’ve secretly tried hundreds of times to do this on our terms. Let’s try a new way.
Bob Johnson says:
Spot on, Tim. Thankfulness for this miracle given to us
(grace) helps a lot too.
Jana Buckley says:
The questions posed are a good outline for examining and evaluating what holds us back from making positive steps forward.