It’s a brand new shiny year. At 5 minutes before midnight I was in front of the TV tuning into Dick Clark broadcasting from an unknown location. He was always an institution in that role for goodness knows how many years, until ill health required him to turn it over to a much younger generation of celebrity for the host role at Times Square in New York City. He was making a shaky physical appearance in welcoming the New Year and perhaps to show his Eveready batteries took a lickin’ but still are a tickin’.
The host of American Idol Ryan Seacrest, who took his place, was surrounded by a young hip varied group of stars with a seemingly gratuitous sad nod to the older generation (only as early as mine!) by including the presence of singer Lionel Ritchie. (Amusing to me because it seems his foremost effort for many years in the limelight has been watching his daughter Nicole and her antics in front of the paparazzi press along with Paris Hilton). For the last 5 minutes of 2008, I bounced between New York and the countdown at the Space Needle in Seattle. When the final 10 second countdown began, I chose Seattle. It’s a spectacular spectacle with fireworks firing from all up and down the needle, including a light show, as well as from the top. I also heard Liza Minnelli singing “Life Is A Cabaret” in the background. (An amusing choice that made me smile). It’s also a very familiar landmark in the Pacific Northwest.
As the countdown reached midnight, I raised my glass in salute to the New Year and was quickly engulfed with a surprising flood of emotion along with immediate thoughts of my loved ones far from home and my beloved husband next to me, how much I love them and felt the tears flood my eyes.
Later I reflected on that moment. I know when I love, its deep and that was my first instinct in emotion for my mind to focus on my loved ones at that apex in time, both near and far. It’s been an emotional year on many levels. Perhaps it was an unconscious stock taking seconds of all the things that have happened in 2008. Sort of like what it must be like when someone’s life flashes before their eyes in an instant. The events that have shaken and threatened the very foundation of our way of life in the U.S., from government and the domino effect it has had on what we have taken far too much for granted in so many ways. There is a sort of feeling that might include fear in what our future holds as a nation, as well personal issues. It’s also coupled with hope. Hope that the New Year will hold shiny treasures that will save us from what this downward spiral has created in our hearts and minds. Hope that where we, loved ones or friends might have experienced in difficulties on their path due to the downward drop in the economy will find solutions to rebound in the next year.
What is the traditional celebration of the New Year, aside from a good reason to have or go to a party, if it is not a closing out of what has been and then look forward with hope to bigger, brighter and more productive things? It’s also a time for “resolutions”. Either we believe in them or we don’t. CNN even ran a poll to deduce how many of the American people do or don’t participate in the tradition. A resolution is a commitment to a particular direction that will be carried out by willful regularly practiced action on ones part, with hopefully a positive outcome to that commitment. I think that too many of us are waylaid from the start because of the many emotions evoked by the ending of one year to pass on to the next at midnight, once a year, with hopes that it might spur us to actually follow thru with whatever is desired to be attained. In theory, it’s a very romantic and idealistic tactic on our parts as humans.
Usually whatever issue we want to address has been with us for some time. For most of us, we wake up after the New Year gung ho and ready to rock until we hit the wall that actually requires real exertion on our part to climb enough to scale the wall to drop to the other side where we have worked hard enough to establish a pattern. Hopefully, with positive results enough to continue on to an established change that will become routine. Many times it’s too easy to give up too early and fall back on the philosophical viewpoint that resolutions or rules set are made to be broken and accept defeat. Perhaps that is for many of us a “Plan B”. However, in the background of our minds we silently beat ourselves up for failing. Too many times we announce our intentions to early to those close to us verbally; fooling ourselves in the process thinking that by verbalizing it will make it come true, before it has become a commitment of the soul to actually commit to the real work involved to make a major life change.
I am not dismissing the help and support that others close to us in our lives can offer because that is certainly a valid part of success to a personal commitment. However, if the nail is not set in its course, the hammer is of no use. The hammer being the driving force, whether or not it’s from a personal internal source or a supportive one, it’s of no use if there is no connection between the hammer and the nail. That comes from within us.
We also want to shine with accomplishment in the eyes of those that care about us. Ego is a selfish aspect of our complex makeup. The thing I have learned is that most people around us are more interested in the outcome, which is a long way from actually accomplishing it. What is required is a desire to establish in our soul first that which we want to attain and committing to that desire with acknowledging the work that will be involved on our part. Actually practice it every single day. We could do so much better by aspiring to shine in our own eyes rather than relying on accolades from others to keep us going. That part should be the frosting on the cake but not the foundation for success.
I think it’s easier for others we want to count on to help us once they see that we are really serious about making that change or accomplishing that goal. We are all busy people dividing our time in so many directions and to allot time to a new direction, regardless of how much we care about any one person in need is easier done if the person in need is ready for the help. That is our responsibility to accept it and make the active effort to move ahead.
In sharing a bit of “wisdom” earned on my path, I am also very human and am looking forward to how I can evolve, change and actually accomplish on my own path this New Year. I wish you all the very best on your journeys and wherever they might take you and yours.
