A Fresh New Start

For many individuals, the start of the New Year heralds a blank slate.  This is an opportunity to start fresh and make a new start.  This is the chance for everyone to take the high road and shed the situations and behaviors that were holding you back.  It's the time that I feel empowered to transform into a better, more viable human being.  I relinquish all the past toxic patterns that have been useless to me.  Now I don't believe that we should only have one time a year where we realize that we need change, but it does make me feel hopeful that things can only get better.  We are all capable, as human beings, to remodel our lives, but sometimes that promise doesn't stick.  Maybe it's the promise that a new year will come or we procrastinate and say, "I'll do it eventually."  The standard resolutions such as losing weight, quitting smoking, or saving money for a house, vacation, car etc., seem to be empty promises for most people.  If you plan to take them seriously, why not start in October instead of January?

The changes from year to year seem to be halted or weighed down by hope, rather than action.  Taking advantage of the New Year occasion to pursue emotional change, intellectual advancement, and physical improvement, should be something that we can enable at any time in our lives.  Why should we feel the burden of feeling that we have to fulfill this solemn vow to change?  If we realize that our life is in our own hands and we are the authors of our own reality, we can create a new road to improving life and giving ourselves that little push that makes created goals less insurmountable and more in the realm of definite possibility.  I prefer to immerse myself in new experiences and give myself a chance by starting something completely different.  That maybe frightening for some, but I think that it gives you the push to either sink or swim.  Fill your newly patterned goals with the chance to make a difference, rather than sitting under the rock of doubt.

Just remember that you are the only one, in this world, that can banish your own chaotic situation and create a life where you can fulfill your desire to have peace and comfort.  For myself, I shall strengthen my resolve to allow the ability to maintain a better focus.  I want to be healthier physically, I want to quit smoking, and I want to have a better sense of self.  I want that for me so that I can be a better wife, sister, daughter, friend, pet mommy, etc.  If there is any lesson that I have learned from 2014; I can honestly say that life is fickle and we should never take anything that we have for granted.  We live in a life of impermanence and we should all relish in the now.  Sure things will be tough and sometimes you'll feel hopeless, but remember to find gratitude in the simplest of things.  For now I will leave you with best wishes for the coming year and the hopes that your dreams become a reality.  Happy 2015!

Morality IS a Choice

Many people associate atheism, secularism, or agnosticism with a form of nihilsm.  It as if people believe that the lack of religious beliefs removes you from morality.  By the removal of religious belief, an atheist is often categorized as “evil” or apathetic when it comes to making decisions of what is right and wrong.  Dostoevsky believed that “…if God is dead, then everything is permitted.”  Being without religious belief doesn’t leave you without the accountability for your actions.  People are subject to being “good” or “bad” without the tenents of religion for a morality lesson.  Atheism doesn’t guarantee you a pass that says you can do whatever you want.  I’m pretty sure that there are some secularists, agnostics, and atheists that do practice Nihilism, but there is always a bad apple that spoils the bunch.  These people are usually the ones that are singled out for ridicule and, therefore, put a label for all atheists, agnostics, and secularists as being without a moral code.  Morality isn’t a nursery rhyme or a parable from the bible stating how you should live.  It’s a human choice.  You have an innate ability to judge how you would like to live your life idealistically and morally.  Whether you are religious or not, you can still be selfish, violent, bigoted, and hateful.  It hasn’t stopped anyone from showing their own human flaws.  Religion doesn’t absolve you from those things.  There is no requirement that says that you need something larger, spiritually speaking, than yourself to keep humanity from wrong doing.  You have to wonder if people use religion like a lottery ticket.  You can’t win if you don’t play?  Please!  I don’t play the lottery and I don’t need to take a gamble with doctrine just so I can earn my way into “heaven”.  I do not need a divine guarantee.  I find moral quality in my vulnerability as a human living in the world.  I find solace in rational, critical decision making and the ability to relate to my fellow humans.  That is what makes us individuals, good or bad.  This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t believe in God or whatever diety you are worshipping.  It just means that morality doesn’t need religion in order to instill a sense of accountability, charity, or good nature.

Holiday Blues

The holidays can be an especially tough time for so many people.  We all correllate the Yuletide season with decorations, feasting, and the giving of gifts.  Sometimes this season can also harken back to happy childhood memories and feel that life in the present isn't measuring up to that time in your life.  The holidays may trigger bad memories in your childhood or the feelings of grief for those you have lost.  Either way, our lives keep moving and changing in the present.  Every year, though we may think otherwise, it's a whole new ball of wax.  My new outlook is remembering to find joy in as much of the rhetoric as humanly possible.  I have been trying to let each Winter holiday be a new and enlightening experience.

My way of trying to bring the sparkle back into my holiday is to try letting go of feeling that horrible noose called obligation.  Whether it's a certain holiday get together or a holiday tradition that brings you unease, you can often get stuck and lose track of what makes you happy.  What makes you happy in the present often gets shoved back and forgotten during this time of year.  If you take the time to figure out what makes you feel joyful and exercise that, you will have a much better time of it.

When I get toward this time of year, I try to sort out all of the things that give me such a hard time.  If it's memories that you associate with departed loved ones or just the feeling of panic when I have to be around a large crowd of people.  I look for the triggers, so that I can avoid them.  I often think it would be a good time to go on a relaxing vacation during this time of year.  It's as if that is the magic golden ticket that I never really cash in.  Maybe that seems like avoidance, but it seems more like paradise to me.  Paradise would be a nice meal rather than spending a kings ransom on gifts every holiday.

This year I have decided to inject new memories with my husband, my pets, my sisters, and my family, but remember that I am a person with needs as well.  Making sure that stress won't occur may feel insurmountable, but working in some good times can definitely take some of the pressure off and give you some much needed confidence.  It can also lessen up on the frown and worry lines.  I'm going to remember that it's not about stress or gift giving; it's about experiencing the peace and joy of the season.