Every year there are all sorts of articles encouraging us to
make our resolutions, and giving us tips on how to fulfill them. We start each New
Year with a renewed optimism that this is the time where we’ll lose all that
weight, or fulfill some lifelong dream we’ve held on to. I’m no different, for
2013 I have pledged to finally start exercising regularly and lose those
unwanted pounds, get more foot traffic to my blog, work on that novel I’ve been
trying to write for ages, and get the house more organized –as the kids get
older, I can no longer use them as an excuse. Resolutions are a natural
inclination for us humans; it is what propels us willingly into an uncertain
future.
Each year we wipe the slate clean and get to start over
again; the last 365 days are in the rear view mirror and there’s nothing but the
open road ahead of us. Whether we keep our resolutions or not, what’s more interesting
to me is that with each passing year -that often includes great disappointments,
failings, and even the loss of loved ones; we still begin January with the most
positive of aspirations. It says a lot about a culture that can –for the most
part, forget the recent past and look ahead with the hopes of a prosperous
future. If you lose the weight –great! If not, there’s always 2014 -right? Hope
is what keeps us from disintegrating into a Nietzsche-like darkness that
overtakes us and shatters our faith.
There is a lot of BS going on in the country and the world
around us that can defeat hope if we let it, but as Dr. Martin Luther King said,
“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” Oh how
true, if we lose hope, we have nothing –we have Nietzsche. For me, a New Year is
the essence of eternal optimism, not because of specific resolutions, but
because with everything we experience, we still have the desire to make them. Whatever challenges life throws at us, somehow
we still retain the seeds of hope.
Happy New Year!
Alice from The Block
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