Life In 2014

The new year is an interesting time. I feel that this time along with birthdays are the times that people become the most introspective. We reflect on what the hell we accomplished… or didn’t accomplish. But more importantly, we look forward and think about what we want to do, or what kind of person we want to be. I’m not sure if it’s just me but ringing in a new year seemed like a bigger deal when I was younger. Something about it was so great and if I’m being honest, I felt that I could actually reset the past and wash away my sins. It’s as if the previous year didn’t exist and all is forgiven. Now that I’m older I think I just pray to anyone who will listen that, that’s how I’ll feel when I know in my gut the changing of a year doesn’t mean shit, it’s just another day in the world of time. Thankfully I’m not time, I’m man, and I ignore logicality.

I fucking love new years, sure I may have some internal conflicts about what it really means to me. However, I am certain it does mean something and I love what that something feels like. The scary part is when it wears off. When we hit April or May and everyone is back in their swing again saying to each other, “Oh my god, I can’t believe it’s basically summer.” Reverting back to the tendencies you don’t like is never fun.

So how do you capture that something? How do you hold onto the optimism and clarity when going into a new year? Do we voice out our ambitions to other people? Write down our goals and constantly look at them? Have a friend hold us accountable? I guess it just depends on the type of person you are. Also, how do you account for the variables that seem to change our thinking? Of course, these are all rhetorical questions. The only right answer is what works for us individually.

If you figure out a way to maintain the feeling right around the new year and keep it steady for an entire year you have to let me know your secret. Or don’t. You’ve basically captured lighting in a bottle. I feel like I’m getting close to figuring it out. I always do… but then April or May hit and I look myself in the mirror and say, “Oh my god, I can’t believe it’s basically summer.”

Time.

ImageI don’t want to say that I’m worried but I can definitely acknowledge that I’m a little concerned with how fast time is moving. It’s strange that I think of time as this ever changing thing, but it’s not, as a matter of fact it’s so consistent that it’s the one thing we overlook and take for granted. The idea of time could very easily be looked at as a metaphor of how people should approach life – Time doesn’t stop it just keeps going until it gets to where it needs to get, it takes it’s own time, and it’s such a force in life that it’s impossible to ignore. I don’t want to get into the reflective bullshit of looking back on the year that was but if I may for just a quick second – the year that was, was an eye opener. It was the year when I’d write an appointment for next week and it would seem to arrive tomorrow or I’d set a task six months into the future and somehow I was struggling to reach the goal because I didn’t seem to have enough time. Most importantly, physically speaking, time has caught up to me in a few aspects that I’m too afraid to even explore.

The idea of time is inevitable and it’s what structures our lives and makes us evaluate and reassess our approach to life. How many New Year resolutions did you make or how many did you hear? Did you take a moment to map out the course of your life over the next calendar year and set goals that were all formed with-in a timetable? Probably. That’s normal, and optimistic and quite honestly it’s something that’s needed in order to right our wrongs or to masque the faults that we see in ourselves. And that’s the beauty of the New Years Resolution.

We make resolutions based around a calendar and think we’re going to magically change when January 1st comes around. The New Year is a time for optimism and honestly I wish we could all bottle that feeling on a day to day basis because it seems that it washes away sooner rather than later. For the record, I’m a firm believer of laying out your goals and going after them on a time timeline.

We should never forget the feeling of what new time affords us, and what new time means for our souls. Moving forward (and to wrap up this rant) I’m here to remind you something that my mom reminds me. Approach every day as you’d approach the New Year. Don’t think you have one opportunity to make resolutions and there is this magical moment that you’ll be able to stick with them.

The opportunity to tackle time and make the best of it is here on August 1st and January 1st, that will never change. As we get older time seems to go faster, responsibilities seem to pile up, and windows of time seem to close. I wish I really grasped what people meant when they told me “time goes fast.”

In the words of the great Ferris Bueller: “Life is pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you may miss it.”