Changes, Differences, Love & Patience
Dear Everyone Moving Into the New Year,
Life has been interesting for the last 20 some-odd years of so, and I expect it will be interesting for the next 20 and hopefully the next 20 after that and after that, and so on. Interesting isn’t bad. It’s just interesting.
This past year, as I’m sure it has for many, has been full of changes. When the president said ‘change’, who knew he was speaking so personally to me? I guess life really is all about changes, but some days, I’d like for things to stay the same from one day to the next, without the whirlwind swirls in the night. Wake up and life is radically altered. What was so wrong with yesterday that it had to become today, and why does today always seem to want to work into tomorrow?
I’ve lost friends last year. I gained some too. The gain of 1000 friends can’t even compete or compare to the pain of the loss of just one. Still, I am thankful for every new friend I meet, every new voice that matches and sings with mine.
Health was the theme for the last year, both for me and my friends. Whether it’s our age, with us all getting on up there in years, or whether it’s just what happens when people live long enough, it seems everyone’s body at some point this past year has failed them. Some failed to the point they died. There is sadness in death, but for me, the real sadness is only for those who are left behind. The ones who die, they move on to something better, greater, grander, more infinite than this life. Where they go, health doesn’t matter. There is no pain, no cancer, no diabetes, no weight gain or weight loss. Where they go, it’s perfect.
And yet, I’m not ready to go there any time soon to join them.
The country has seen differences of opinion pan out and differences of opinion lead to war. We are all different. We are all the same. The more different we are from one another, the easier it is to see just how much we are all the same.
What holds the world together? Love. Love of mankind, love of love, love of life, love for oneself and love for others. In the end, enemy or friend, love for a person being who they are, what they are, where they are… that’s acceptance, and we get both closer to and farther away from each other with every choice we make. We are the same. We are different. Because we are different, we are all still the same.
Patience is the key to being able to bear any of the things that happen in this world, because, as painful as things are, awful as things are, wonderful as things are, beautiful as things are… when we sit by patiently, things always change. So when we are hurting, simply sit with quiet and know that this too shall pass.
There’s a new year ahead of us. We all are moving forward into the unknown together, as friends, as enemies, as adversaries, as allies. It doesn’t matter. We move forward together whether we agree or disagree, whether we love or hate, whether we smile or frown.
So for me, I’ve decided I’d rather smile. I’d rather agree. I’d rather love.
What will you choose? Will you move forward with gladness and love and joy in your heart or will you just move forward? See, that’s the point: You will move forward no matter what. Why not move forward in the best way possible?
Happy New Year. Happy New Life. Happy New Day.
Every day is a new day. Every day begins the first day of the new year. Every day begins the first day of the rest of your life.
Don’t take it for granted.
Live with love, patience, kindness, willingness to change, accepting of differences, and ready for the beginning of all beginnings.
Love with love,
Just One Human Being
There is such simple beauty, in such simple truth.