A new year is nothing special, nothing new. After all, every day is a new shot at life. As Arnold Bennett once said, we can turn over a new leaf each hour if we choose. But nonetheless, the passing of the years is a reminder of endings and beginnings—of change.
What are you changing? What are you beginning?
(I had the pleasure of reading a lovely article on the topic, courtesy of the Marginalian. I relay what I gleaned there)
Beginnings, as the Irish poet and philosopher John O’Donohue said, frighten us because they are like a solitary voyage into the unknown. Yet we are not as alone in our beginnings as we think. In O’Donohue’s words:
“A beginning is ultimately an invitation to open toward the gifts and growth that are stored up for us. To refuse to begin can be an act of great self-neglect… Our very life here depends directly on continuous acts of beginning.”
John O’Donohue
What this years turns out will depend on what we choose to let go of and what we choose to start. What must be removed? What must be added? What needs to change? It is easy to stagnate. To let possessions own you, comfort own you, familiarity own you, instead of you being the master of your sails. Humans were made for more than ease. We were made to take risks.
“Risk might be our greatest ally. To live a truly creative life, we always need to cast a critical look at where we presently are, attempting always to discern where we have become stagnant and where new beginning might be ripening. There can be no growth if we do not remain open and vulnerable to what is new and different. I have never seen anyone take a risk for growth that was not rewarded a thousand times over.”
This goes against out tendency to habituate, to get comfortable, to let inertia take the wheel. Inertia takes countless people comfortably, and mindlessly, to their graves. Isn’t life more than that? Shouldn’t we shake it up and continuously evolve? To create anything new, upheaval is necessary. But beginning can be intimidating.
“Sometimes the greatest challenge is to actually begin; there is something deep in us that conspires with what wants to remain within safe boundaries and stay the same… Sometimes a period of preparation is necessary, where the idea of the beginning can gestate and refine itself; yet quite often we unnecessarily postpone and equivocate when we should simply take the risk and leap into a new beginning.”
Every choice has a price. Action will cost us, but so will inaction. Beginning anew can be terrifying because it feels like something else is lost. Indeed, every choice made means the death of a thousand other possible choices, and every ending is a kind of death in itself. Yet in every ending is also a beginning.
“Often when something is ending we discover within it the spore of new beginning, and a whole new train of possibility is in motion before we even realize it. When the heart is ready for a fresh beginning, unforeseen things can emerge. And in a sense, this is exactly what a beginning does. It is an opening for surprises. Surrounding the intention and the act of beginning, there are always exciting possibilities.”
I’ll leave you with O’Donohue’s beautiful poem.
Here’s to new endings.
Here’s to new beginnings.
FOR A NEW BEGINNING
by John O’Donohue
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.