Dear Everyone,
Although it’s way overdue, I’ve been thinking of a way to welcome another year and tell you all how very valuable and important you are to me (yes, even when you don’t get a reply to your emails). I know it’s not just me who feels as though the calendar has sped up of late, although I’m certain now that the passage time is relative – mainly to whether or not our bodies are over 40, I think.
Days go by superfast, weeks and months speeding along, and before we know it, it’s ‘happy new year’ time again.
It’s supposed to be the time of year for resolutions, new beginnings, and a whole lot of inner reflection. This has often puzzled me – why do we try to make such ginormous changes in mid-winter? Why not the first day of spring, or the summer solstice, or even our individual dates of birth?
I guess it’s as simple as numbers – we like the number 1. It’s teeny and perfect and has no baggage, like we’d all like to be in many ways. So we aspire for 1-ness; we wait for the beginning of a new year so that we can start anew with the number 1 and hopefully draw some magical strength from it.
I don’t believe in that kind of magic. Hell, I don’t believe in most of ’em (except that levitating guy..the greasy-looking one..he’s got skills). There’s no resolution-making going on for me – I don’t need another excuse to kick myself in the ass when I decide on day 3 that doing fifty sit-ups first thing every morning no longer sounds like such a good idea. It’s my opinion that most of the things we’re disappointed in ourselves about could be easily avoided by not setting ridiculously-structured goals for ourselves which are almost certain to fail, leaving us feel like….well, failures.
If you feel like a failure, a loser, a slacker, or a bum – and I believe that most of us do, at one time or another – the following is my best advice. Forgive me for allowing someone else to speak for me here, but if you really pay attention you’ll find that it couldn’t possibly be said better. Just listen…
(I’ve embedded the original composition first, with a lyrics-added version after. Watch both. You have time, or you wouldn’t be here to begin with.)
In that vein, this will be my last episode of advice-giving (or taking) for 2016. We should all spend a lot more time listening to ourselves – our bodies, our minds, and our dreams – and a lot less trying to find the answers in others. Trust me on this much: it’s the learning that matters.
– Dana