A
Clean Slate By
Sue Cryer January,
2016
The
New Year.
All
is shiny and new, at least according to the calendar hanging on the wall or
popping up on our phones. Sure, appointments are scheduled and vacations
planned. Uncle Stew’s 80th birthday is February 20th and
Cousin Gwen is visiting in June. What we don’t have scheduled is the
unexpected. We have been given a clean slate to start the year where that is
concerned.
In
fact, the new calendar is almost pristine in its uneventfulness. Page after
page of white squares blur before our eyes as we anticipate a better year, a
healthy year, a new year.
As
we rip the old calendar off the wall, the pages flutter in our faces. Reminders
of days we had no idea would be spent in remorse, fear, trepidation and even
grief. The job we lost, the storm we never saw coming, an illness that had yet
been undetected, the loss of someone dear to us. The questions linger in our
minds. How did we get through that? Why did it happen? What should we have done
differently?
Of
course, there was elation too. Maybe there was unexpected joy in the news of a
marriage or a new baby. Perhaps there was a new love in our lives, the settling
of a financial hardship, or the return of someone we had greatly missed. All
good reasons for elation. Yet, each event still causes nervous trepidation as
the possible results trigger the fear of more changes in our lives.
For
goodness sake, why can’t we just be happy? Stop worrying about what tomorrow or
next week, month or year will bring? Well, we are human after all. Given a good
size brain, free will and all that. We can never just be satisfied.
As
a species, we crave more. We seek more. Not always in the wisest way. Just
watch the news, open your newspaper, google, or peruse the posts on social
media. Politicians posturing, extremists emitting, insensitive judging,
privileged coveting, entitlement rising, terrorists plotting, and guns being
drawn.
All
because we are not satisfied. We need things. We want things. These things
involve being bigger, better, stronger, thinner, healthier, and even happier.
Ah,
some of those are positive things. We are human. We have free will. Keep
watching, googling and reading. Families grow, artists create, good will
spreads, cures are discovered, minds heal, nature rebounds, a view is
breathtaking and sins are absolved.
So,
adjustment can be beneficial. The new and unexpected may set us free from the
worries of yesterday.
Is
this true? Yes. I believe it can be.
I
am sticking with that answer, because that is what my human heart is telling my
human brain. Be strong. Be positive. Be flexible.
Most
of all, live each day like it is a clean slate!
