New

Day 114. New.

Welcome to 2015, ready or not. My wish is that we all find the happiness we seek.  It's a new day, and a new year, and a new world. Time to get to work making our lives into what we want them to be, sewing the scraps of the past into a new sail and raising it in victory.

It was morning, and the new sun sparkled gold across the ripples of a gentle sea. Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

We are never guaranteed a moment past the one we live in, yet we plan for futures with such confidence. We make reservations for trips we may never take, we agree to events that may happen without us. Mortality is a scary thing, if we dwell on it. I believe it gives us a sense of freedom. We are not required to accommodate anything we don't want to, using the uncertainty of the future as a backstop. Avoid the wedding of the cousin we really don't like, skip dinner with the friends we're really not close to anymore, have other plans when the nice but weird guy from the second floor wants to have a drink after work.We can convince ourselves "it's the right thing to do."

Being spontaneous isn't for everyone. You run great risk by keeping your calendar open: it sometimes never gets filled in. If the rest of your circle are planners, they sometimes forget to include you, and you're stuck alone when no one invites you to the party. Be prepared to sacrifice some of your time, but always be ready to dive headfirst when someone mentions the ocean. At least have your boat ready, even if you're still working on that new sail.

Lesson One Hundred Fourteen: Drink a toast to innocence, drink a toast to time. Dan Fogelberg knew: try to reach beyond the emptiness, you really do know how.

616 to go...