Having Its Way With Us

I love December. The way the sun stays low in the sky, the temperatures fall and darkness descends early, and the reminder that the year isn’t over yet. Yes, a new year looms over the horizon, but this one isn’t done with us yet.

This year, perhaps more than any other, we’ve discovered so much about ourselves. The good, the bad, and even—or especially—the ugly. These final days of the year are ones in which to take stock and decide what to do with what we’ve been given. And, when the time comes to turn the page on a new year, know what to bring with us, and what to leave behind.

The year 2020 has been one for the books, and there are still 31 days for this year to have its way with us. May we end this last chapter well.

On The Road Again

The early weeks in a new year are often a time of introspection and reflection as we allow the dust of the previous year to settle, and our vision and roadmap for the new one to begin to emerge.

It is time well spent.

On one condition.

Insight is cheap unless we take action on what we’ve discovered during the days of turning our gaze inward. That deeper understanding of who we are and what we care about is meant to energize our lives out in the world. It doesn’t even matter if we don’t yet have a crystal clear vision for the road ahead. It is time to start taking action, trusting that we’ll gain the clarity we need through the process of moving forward.

Do you remember those toy cars that had an internal mechanism called a pullback motor? The more you pulled the car backwards, the more the energy built up until when you released the car, it shot forward.

We are seven weeks into this new year. It’s time to stop pulling our cars backward, let them go, and hang on for the ride.

(With gratitude to Dane Anthony for reminding me about these tiny cars)

Photo: PRR on pexels.com

Insight + Action = Transformation

Every day there is the possibility of discovering new things about ourselves and our way of being in the world.

If we pay attention, we can gain insight that can help us become more of the person we want to be.

Insight however, is cheap.

It’s what we do with it that counts.

Question 1: What insight have you discovered about yourself?

Question 2: What are you going to do about it?

Photo by Moises Besada from Pexels

For Weekend Reflection

Maturity is not a static arrived platform, where life is viewed from a calm, untouched oasis of wisdom, but a living elemental frontier between what has happened, what is happening now and the consequences of that past and present, first imagined and then lived into the waiting future.

~David Whyte: CONSOLATIONS

What does your past tell you that can help you live more fully into your waiting future?