Dear All,
"And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been." Rainer Maria Rilke
We have already seen that 2021 will be filled with new (and still challenging) things, but can we please take a moment to acknowledge getting through 2020, a year which many of us will remember as one of the worst years of our lives?!
We survived, which on its own is a huge accomplishment.
I hope you give yourselves some props.
Despite the challenges of fatigue, depression, boredom, illness, loss, confusion and uncertainty, you did it.
You demonstrated grit, resilience, steadfastness and a determination to develop new perspectives, reevaluate many stale beliefs and live life with a new awareness.
We may have battle scars, but we are still standing.
In many respects, 2020 was about waiting; waiting for information about Covid-19, waiting for lockdown to be over, for our kids to go back to school, waiting for the election results, waiting for the vaccine to be discovered and administered.
We spent a year waiting.
Waiting has allowed us to put off making decisions on where we want to live, whether to stay in or leave relationships, whether to change jobs or careers, or what to do next with our lives.
We are waiting to express ourselves, come back to life, experience rejoicing.
We may be waiting to clarify who we are and what matters most.
Waiting has weighed us down.
However not everything about waiting has been negative. We've developed patience, become more comfortable with slowing down and accepting of having fewer answers.
The question now is: Is it time to stop waiting?
Is it time to consider why you may be waiting to do what you want to do or be or who you want to be?
A few of the lines from the poem Waiting by Leza Lowitz may resonate with you:
"You keep waiting for something to happen,
the thing that lifts you out of yourself,
Catapults you into doing all the things you've put off
the great things you're meant to do in your life.
But somehow never quite get to.
You keep waiting for the planets to shift,
The new moon to bring news,
The universe to align, something to give..
Sometimes you lie in bed, terrified of your life.
Sometimes you laugh at the privilege of waking.
But all the while life goes on in its messy way.
And then you turn forty. Or fifty. Or sixty..
Life is moving on, nothing has stopped.
Let's seize the moment and be aware as Ralph Waldo Emerson is, of "how much of human life is lost in waiting."
2020 did certainly feel like an agonizing amount of lost time this year.
But we've stepped in to 2021.
What are you longing for this year?
Who do you want to be?
Is there something specific you are waiting to do but you worry you are not ready?
Heed the advice from the children's book, Lemony Snicket.
“Are you ready?" Klaus asked finally.
"No," Sunny answered.
"Me neither," Violet said, "but if we wait until we're ready we'll be waiting for the rest of our lives, Let's go.”
― Lemony Snicket.
Take a little time to think about what you fear you are not ready for..
Are we ever really ready for anything?
I am reading Barak Obama's new book, A Promised Land. He brilliantly and elegantly writes about knowing when to wait and when to go for it. He almost didn't run for President because he wasn't ready.
He wisely reminds us "Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek". Barak Obama
Although I first read Diary of Anne Frank 50 years ago, I still remember the line "How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.
I would add "or one's self."
I hereby vow to stop waiting!
I won't wait a single moment more before starting to improve the world. And myself.
Join me if it feels right.
It will be worth the wait.
Feel free to forward this to someone who might enjoy it! With love and light,
Nora Plesent