Dear Editor,
As we turn the calendar back to January, we often exclaim “What a Year!” The things we did, things we saw, things that happened to us. Things. Stuff. For me, it raises the question “What is a year?” What makes a great year vs. a “normal” year?
Beyond the basic 12 months, 52 weeks, and 365 days, it is not an easy question to answer. How can we sum up all of what we’ve experienced? Much of our lives are gobbled up by routines. We have daily routines, weekly routines, monthly routines, etc.
We have a routine for getting our day started, a routine for getting ourselves into bed, and routines for almost everything. Negotiating life through our routines is our comfort zone. It’s our “Linus blanket.” But having worked our way through the year successfully managing our day-to-day tasks is not what goes into our photo album. It’s not what our children and grandchildren will remember and talk about us.
Passing our lives in the context of our routines is not living. It just proves we exist. It is a departure from our routines that define our year(s).
So, what is a year? It is an opportunity to push ourselves out of the comfort zone of our routines. We travel, we take on new responsibilities, we form new relationships. We try new things. We join new organizations that add to our lives and to the lives of others.
We change the way we think about ourselves and what we can and should do with the new year. We energize our search for a personal epiphany.
Gerry Giesler, Greensboro