When I was in Primary School, I used to love the start of the school year. Generally because it marked the end of my old exercise books and the beginning of new ones. New classes, new teachers, new report cards, they all went with it. I still remember it clearly. I would carefully pick out the Contact I would cover my books with, choose the perfect pens, and get a new pencil case. Everything was clean, shiny and new – just the way I wanted it. My first page was always a Title Page, which I’d carefully design and colour. My handwriting would be meticulously neat, and spaced perfectly (I’d promised myself it would be like that the whole year).
By the start of the 3rd or 4th week however, things started to get comfortable, the handwriting more relaxed and far less ledgible. By the third month, my books had became dog eared, and half way through the year, the wrath of my teachers’ red pen was very much evident. My once cherished books had well and truly lost their sparkle. I wanted new ones already!
All of us look forward to new beginnings, whether it’s a new day, month, year, a new job, school, home or relationship. Whatever it is, it’s the promise of a fresh start – for something exciting and new. It also provides the opportunity for people to put to rest the things they didn’t like. This year there’s a common theme of people saying good riddance to 2009. For many, it has been labelled one of the toughest. Yet despite what calendar year is coming to an end, we generally tend to hear the bad bits over the good and hastily look to the future. With little reflection and gratitiude for what we have achieved, we find ourselves holding out for those new school books – sometimes much earlier than December.
For all of us this year, we’ve faced joy, laughter, death, grief, and sorrow. Whether favourable or not, what we take from our experience depends on how we look at it. In doing so it’s important to remember, that we further create our Reality by what we think about. We get what we focus our attention on – whether we want it or not. So before you hastily bid the New Year goodbye or decide to conjure up the typical NYE Resolutions. Before you write the entire year off as a bad one, and decide what you don’t want to take with you… why not focus on what it is you have gained from this year?
- What you do want create in 2010?
- What is it that you’ ve loved, learnt from and feel excited about that can propel you even further forward?
- What and who inspired you?
- What great new people came into your life?
- What did you learn about yourself?
These are just some of the questions you can ask yourself, and just some of the things I’ll be reflecting on too, before the clock strikes Midnight. Whether it was our best year ever, or one that contained our darkest hours, we all have alot to be grateful for this year.
I’d love to hear your thoughts 
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