New Years Message 🙂

Happy New Year dear F.O.T Readers! 

I hope this new year finds you well and sufficiently recalibrated, ready to take on the journey ahead of us. 

For this post, I want to write about something that has been brewing in my mind about "the New Year". During this season, one of the most common phrases used is 'starting over' and 'new beginnings'... From our New Year resolution lists to church sermons and commercial postings, the motifs of "starting over" and "new beginnings" are not to be missed. Not to mention the pressure that is usually placed upon the masses to "start something new". In this 'starting over' camp there's usually that group of people who are starting over on unfinished projects, goals, and tasks that were left along the way from the previous years. Then there are those that are beginning afresh that which they've never done before, and finally, there's that curious lot who ironically 'start over' on completely new projects😂😂😂. And so, for every new year, we have a long list of things that are being started and an even longer list of those being left unfinished.

However, I would love to remind us that New Year is not just for new beginnings. Life is a continuous cycle of starting, continuing, completing, then starting over again. Depending on what part of the sequence you're on, New Year won't always come with new beginnings. For some, new year represents a time of continuing on. In this scenario, the new year will look like continuing with a goal, assignment, task, project, idea or undertaking that was began in the previous year(or years). It will be a time of diligently cultivating that which was started earlier. It is a time of renewing strength and hope to help you successfully carry on with your undertakings. It will involve recalibration, pruning out excesses, and straightening the crooked paths that may have formed in your undertakings, whichever they are, so that you come to a successful completion. It is a time to reflect on what adjustments ought to be made in order to ameliorate your outcomes. It is a time of patient endurance until you come to a successful completion of that which you are working on. 

Then there are those on the completion part of the sequence. For this lot, the New Year is a time of completing seasons or undertakings. For these, it is a time of tying up loose ends so that the project or undertaking comes to a perfect completion. It is a time of gratitude for having come to the completion of an undertaking. It is time to bask in the glory of a task well completed while looking forward to beginning something new again. 

I won't forget to add that life is not a straight line, meaning oftentimes, we will experience two or all three of these phases simultaneously but in different spaces. For example you may be in the new beginnings phase in your diet plan while being in your completion phase in your mortgage payment.

With that in mind, I want to encourage readers to resist the pressure of unnecessarily 'starting over' and instead enjoy the process of continuing and completing the tasks we’ve already begun. There is beauty in all three phases.

Please feel free to leave your comments and observations on this topic!