Here we all are again! Alive, hopefully well, and reading this post in the New Year of 2020. New Year’s Eve is my favorite holiday as I love that there are no presents to buy or big meals to prepare and it is a time of reflection about the past and projection about the future. I love making resolutions, taking time to see where I want to focus and improve my life. Of course, I may start out with good intentions and commitment but then abandon ship and go back to old habits. However, I love re-focusing and stepping up in my life to live with more personal integrity, being true to myself, taking a moral inventory and making the changes needed for a more fulfilling life.
I have been fortunate, blessed, lucky to have the life I have. Good health, a great marriage and family, so many friends and have had the means to experience a multitude of good times. The life I lead has been a combination of luck and making good choices and working hard and that I was born privileged (something I had no control over, I always find it interesting that people get all haughty that they were born white in the US as if there was something so special about them, instead of acknowledging the complete random circumstance of their birth). I recognize daily that I am one of the few on the planet having the great life I do. I am saddened by the fires in Australia, angry about what our country started with Iran which resulted in the tragic result of the civilian plane crash, I am worried about global warming and its impact on every living entity on the planet. My heart goes out to anyone struggling with cancer and poor health problems, and with the grief of losing people and pets we love. There is so much to be sad and angry about in this world. And, there is so much to be grateful for and so much beauty and love and goodness in the world. It is truly a cluster fuck of all that is bad mixed with all that is good. I don’t think human or animal life has been anything but this–joy and suffering combined.
As I look back on the good and fortunate life I have got to live for 64 years I am profoundly grateful. As, I look forward to the years ahead I realize suffering is always knocking at the door, so I open the window today to the joy, the blessings and all that is good at this moment in my life. I am well aware that everything changes, and that nothing is permanent. This moment as I write this is a joyful moment. I am savoring it.
I am grateful for you, readers, and I wish you open windows that bring love, good fortune and blessings into your life in 2020!
