Another notch on the belt, another ring around the tree… whatever your cliché of choice may be, the fact remains that a new year is again upon us. It is the time when resolutionites resolve to change their wicked ways… when the prognosticators prognosticate and debate our collective fate… and when the masses curl up in front of the tube, tuned to whatever “Best of last Year” programming suites their immediate social itches. For me however, there seems something inanely hallow in participating in such endeavors (though I must admit to doing so in the past) and as such, the beginning of my 2013 seems rather lackluster as far as perceived importance or significance. The irony here, friends… is that this could not be further from the truth.
I look to 2013 not as a new lap on the same old track, but rather another mile to travel in the race that few wish to complete. There need not be summation, nor prediction, nor listless resolutions made for public notoriety and private assuagement in 2013. What is ‘needed’ for me this year, is simply an unfettering drive to keep that metaphorical foot on the pedal regardless of the road hazards that jump into frame. How is this any less cliché than the aforementioned weight loss pledges and preposterous predictions? Well, perhaps it isn't… but at least this one is MY cliché.
All day I've had one of those sound-bite-perfect famous quotes rambling in my mind - “Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get” (Dale Carnegie) – and I felt obligated to include it in this forum (as it no doubt incendiated this post). What strikes me most about Mr. Carnegie’s words is learning how to attain both success AND happiness without compromising those things that I “want”. Is this even possible? Or does attaining one in fact preclude the other? I have known plenty of “successful” people who were anything but “happy”… but thinking back, I would be hard-pressed to find a truly “happy” person who considered themselves unsuccessful in life.
Alas I digress, lest I drive the wrong way down a road of semantics. This rambling seeks not to point out solutions and answers, rather to incite the questions that must be asked – or at least that I must be asking myself – as I gear up for 2013. Food for thought, or thoughts for food… the end very rarely justifies what it means to get there… and with that, dear friends… ‘tis time to move along to something completely different.