What is it about milestones in time that invokes reflection and a tendency to consider change?
Is it that our lives are so buys we need at some point in time to stop and check our progress, to look back on the marks we make in the ground as we pass through our lives and measure ourselves against the plan, if indeed a plan existed at all in our mind? Do we look back to see if we are walking alone even though we may have a partner, seeing only one set of footsteps on the track we thought we had agreed to take or was it we just imagined that agreement? Is this the point we question ourselves, beginning to doubt our own perception of the truth we see but can’t bring ourselves to accept? Is it right that we are to use this timely measuring point to make corrections to our direction so that we reach the destination we had in mind, do we compensate for errors not necessarily our own and compromise on our goals in order to make progress, worse still maintain position because to go back is as unthinkable as going alone.
Reflecting on not only 2013 but the past two years is a sobering exercise, recently time to do anything other than work has been in scares supply. Personal goals and projects intended for completion have been forgotten, abandoned or mothballed in the vein hope they will be restarted at a later date.
For me this year grand plans for 2014 are not being made, deciding instead to commit to make time at the beginning of each day to contemplate what it is I have to do, spend a little time looking outwardly at what is happening elsewhere in the world, and re calibrating my view of how difficult it actually isn't to live in the west. Spend more time before I go to bed to reflect on the day’s achievements and look forward to tomorrow’s challenges. Make time for my family and friends at weekends and stop agreeing to take work home. Take more time to listen to those about me I care so much for and share more of my time with them than I have in the past. Spend more time reading in the evenings when I am away from home and write a little more than I have in recent months. Write more letters and less emails, call on my friends in person rather than on my cell phone. Go for more walks in the country and take my camera with me more often than I do. Feel this life as it occurs rather than realise another year has passed without due consideration. Do something different each and every day.
Oh yes and drink more tea.