I have a suspicion.

It’s early morning New Year’s Day, 2014.

A fresh start to a new year. A clean page on the calendars of our lives. A symbolic start of better intentions, clarity in focus and just maybe a day when perhaps there is a slightly more pervasive sentiment of contemplation and philosophical evaluation of life.

Most have the day off work and a few of us with some extra time on hand may find ourselves, clean slate in hand, trying to think about our lives, directions and goals from this day forward.

I may be wrong. You may be horribly hungover, distracted by football, cleaning up messes from your wild night or sleeping the day away from which you very recently arrived home.
But it’s not an entirely illogical presumption that more than a few of us will be doing some deeper thinking from time to time today.

Will you be making plans for self restraint?  Be a little nicer, quit a bad habit, start a good one?  The options are endless for the contemplative mind today.

I applaud those of you who will use this day on your calendar to prompt some positive change in your lives, at least in thought, if not in deed.  It’s a good day for it.  But then again, isn’t any day a good day for it?

We often need some external catalyst like a truly arbitrary day of the year, a nodal event or a circumstance to propel us into deeper thought, better decisions and richer inner lives.  Unfortunately, many of those are usually are tragic, shocking or startling.  Things that shake us to our cores and all but force such important contemplations.

So it’s a new day on the calendar of a brand new year.  And in defense of that, in between today’s traditions, games and naps, do spend a few moments on the important things this day will provoke in you if you just give it a chance.  Don’t wait until something forces your hand.

It might tweak your life just enough to make all the difference between last year’s regrets and this year’s successes.

Happy New Year!

LMSM,

Don