2014 - THE YEAR OF PURPOSEFUL ACTION

A NEW YEAR, A NEW CHAPTER, A NEW OUTLOOK

It is customary that when a new year dawns one turns to thoughts of what has passed, what is now and what will be.  An autopsy, if you will.  The beginning of a new year has such significance, such a sense of transition, that we beat ourselves up for the missteps of the past year as well set grandiose expectations of the next year.  We are left with a sense of melancholy and apprehension.  Also, however, with enthusiasm.  We have another year to get it right, make it right, or keep it on the right track.  It is fresh, ready to birth anything we desire.

At the climax of 2013 and the rise of 2014 I was struck by the urge to have a different perspective. 

Of course, the autopsy happened.  The past year was one of incredible peaks of love, belonging and acceptance juxtaposed with unbelievable loss, despair and feeling adrift at sea.  This past year I have questioned the meaning of friendship and what it means when friends act in a way not congruent with what you thought was their character and in ways that you now understand was their character all along.  What to do when people stand idly by choosing to be spectators when they are important participants.  How to reconcile that you have chosen people to be your family, chosen family, and they do not have that same sense of closeness.   I have questioned my past choices and what those choices mean to me moving forward and sometimes regretted them deeply.  I have struggled with feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy and how that has caused me to fear both failure and success.  I have tried to embrace that all of our experiences matter and have gotten us to the place we are today so there are no wastes of time, only learning.  I reveled in the love of a soul-mate, a life partner, one I never thought existed.  I loved that I found another that truly belongs with me and I with him, no question.  I was thankful daily for the continued presence of my parents, the only family I grew up with, along with the sadness of their getting older.  I came to a clearer understanding that I have work to do but not the work that I thought I still had.  I ended the year with a new, enlightening and somewhat sad understanding that love is both a light shining love on your soul as well as standing in the vast darkness of our humanness with another and choosing to stay, to stand by your chosen one, no matter what.

I didn't want to make another "resolution" or list my goals.  The one thing that stood out for me was the nagging feeling of, or the question, what am I building?  I cannot say that I have not pondered this question before in slightly different terms (what is my passion?).  And I also cannot say that I have had much success at answering the question.  I am hopeful that the change in the question, after all it is a different question, will allow me to reach the answer from a different perspective.  Like when you lay on the floor of a room you have living in for years but the change in perspective makes you feel like you are in a place you have never been before, seeing things as you have never seen them.  Instead of the almost esoteric question of 'what is your passion in life?' it comes at it in a more results oriented way.  "What do you want to build?"  I have sold myself short by living others expectations and letting life lead me instead of me living my life.   Not in every way, but many ways.  This is my work for the new year.  Build something purposefully.  Find out where I want to go and get on the road.