Hitting the Reset Button

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I love standing on the threshold of a new year. Even though the boundary between one year and the next is completely arbitrary, I love standing at the end of the “old” and looking forward into the “new”.Today the new year has not yet arrived. It is still unsullied by footsteps. I haven’t had a chance to let people down in 2013. I haven’t let myself down. I haven’t been let down. All that exists of 2013 at this point is possibility, glittering like snow in the sunshine. Anything can happen. I can stop what I’m doing and start again. Next year will be whatever I make of it, and it can be anything – because it is still “next” year.

Now I’m going to tell you a true thing. This possibility, this endless potential, exists in every moment. The difference between December 31 and January 1 means nothing. The important thing is the difference between this moment and the next one – whenever those moments happen to occur. The “old” exists every day. So does the “new”. I can always hit the reset button.

The problem is, I tend to hit the reset button and never actually, well, reset.

For example.  I am not a morning person, but I get my best writing done in the morning. Contradictory, I know, but that’s the way it goes. After sleeping through the snooze alarm more times than I can count, I finally put my alarm clock across the room and set it with an incredibly annoying buzzing sound. If I want to turn off the alarm – and I do – I have to get up out of bed and walk across the room to do it.

At first this was working quite well. I was getting up and staying up. I got a lot of work done. But then, gradually, I started to get up, smack the alarm reset button, stagger back to bed, and go back to sleep.

The alarm does nothing for me if I go back to sleep. And neither will the new day if I don’t do something with it.

The new year, the new day, the new moment – they all give us a chance to hit the reset button, to start again. It’s our job to make sure we don’t go right back to sleep.

Happy New Year, everybody! See you again in 2013!

snow

Comments

  1. Happy happy new year! May it be full of happiness and all good things, with smiles and with joy!

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