Hindsight is 2020, so I begin the year by looking back at 2019. I pull up my highlights, jolts of happiness and moments of meaning. I think of times I made people laugh, helped someone understand, comforted a person, painted a watercolor or wrote a fluid sentence. I also want to see clearly the lowlights. There are disappointments, sorrows, illnesses, tensions and traumas that blew cold winds through my house. I shuddered awhile and then shuttered the windows against the cold and sat by the fire to heat my bones until my heart recovered some warmth. I look back to see what lessons, especially about my own behavior, I can take with me into the new year.
As I go forward on the 2020 bus, I see that I feel proud when I do difficult things alone, but realize in hindsight that going it alone sometimes causes me to suffer longer than I need to. I realize that by sharing my pain with others my burden will be lessened. My lesson is to seek and accept help sooner. Does “doing it all alone” get to travel with me in 2020? No. I open the 2020 bus window and toss out that package. I just wrote myself this post-it note, “Ask for help sooner.”
I hope you keep from your past year that which most enlivens you. Whatever that is, scooch over and make room for it on the seat next to you on the 2020 bus. Stare at it awhile and let the good feelings wash over you.
What was it that filled the 2019 seat beside you that caused you unnecessary pain? Perhaps an addiction to a toxic substance or person. With 2020 hindsight you see, even through the fog of pleasurable moments, that this diminished your spirit and made you feel unwell. Humbly make a plan to push them off of your seat and out the window. Addictions weigh a lot. The pleasure center of your brain won’t let you summon the strength to easily toss them away. Enlist the help of others. Hire a muscled army of experts and/or strong community of like-minded people who understand. Invite them over to help you lift the heavy negative weight and toss it out the window. See the package get smaller and smaller in your rear-view mirror as you travel down the road. Look ahead into the light of a brighter year.