As always another year dawns. As always there are celebrations
and resolutions. As always the end of the old year is a good time to look back
at milestones and wonder what the year ahead holds for us. What is important
though is to look back with gratitude and to look forward with hope for without
gratitude for the days we have been given, we cannot in anyway learn to
appreciate the days we have ahead.
The past year has seen a series of highs and possibly a
record of lows as well but then that is life. The lessons I have learnt are the
lessons that anyone would learn from a roller coaster ride of dizzying highs
and nauseating lows. The first one is to not let either the highs or lows get
to you. If you overly celebrate the euphoric moments, then the lows feel even
worse. It is best to step back and take everything in your stride by not
letting your inner self get too carried away. You cannot experience great joy
without also opening yourself up to great pain. But you can accept and be
grateful and you certainly can distance yourself from that which causes you
pain. Life is not in anyone’s control but your reactions to pain, to success,
to failure, to unfair treatment, to betrayal – these define you. The reactions
are yours to take control of. They are the only things you can shape so that
you end up balanced instead of tossed madly about in the choppy waves of your
creation.
The next lesson is that of balance. I understand the general movement towards positivity and the
strength in visualising things as much better than they are but what few people
remember is that a constant radiation of positivity is not healthy especially
when it does not flow naturally. How long can you fake positivity if you cannot
really see the bright side in every setback? Undue negativity is harmful to
both body and mind but unrelenting positivity is not beneficial either. As in
all things in life what is desperately required in most lives is harmony. A
balance in dealing with life’s offering tempered by a large dose of acceptance
and a distinct absence of overthinking. Always easier said than done and yet we
all can achieve balance if we seek to.
The other lesson I have learnt is that most people in my
life lack empathy. They think the passage of years takes away the spearing ache
of loss of a loved one. True, there is dullness built up over time but if you
have an iota of empathy, you will know that the kind of grief that fills one on
such a loss is not something that you forget in a day and it certainly is not
something that you leave another alone to face day after day after day. If you
only feel another’s pain once you have experienced comparable grief then you do
not have empathy. I have learnt that I have it within me to forgive the lack of
empathy in another and continue to support those who need it while they are
grieving. It is a valuable lesson to know that I can forgive - it is also
curiously liberating to know that those I believed were stronger were quite
clearly not so. Oftentimes we underestimate our own value and play down our
strengths. In the New Year, I will seek to believe in myself more.
In this past year I have seen transformed friends bathe in the waters of
vanity to the extent that they notice nothing around them but their selfies. I
have seen people try to tear down something simply because they are jealous of
the accomplishments of others. I have seen idols fall. I have seen great things happen simply because of hard work. I have lost faith in
something that I thought was a truth. I have realized the strength of my roots.
And I have found a river of dogged endurance in me that I thought had dried up
to nothing at all.
The New Year will continue to teach all of us lessons in
faith, endurance, sparing a moment for another, dealing with loss and not
losing your head over success. It will remind us to be kind and compassionate.
It will try us for a while and see if we can make the cut. But most importantly
it gives us 365 more days to choose what we want to do and do it. For all of my
friends and loved ones, may the new year be one of good choices, self-belief
and the ability to be kind – may you be healed of old wounds – may you find
within you the strength to go after your dreams.
