Every 1st week of January becomes a time to once again check those issues and items which have gone undone during the past year. Or the ones
which were done when they actually shouldn’t have been done. And all those
changes we sworn to undergo in order to be “more acceptable”.
The reality is
that I, like many others, like to think that with the coming of the new year comes
a time to usher in new thoughts, possibilities, directions and, in general, a
new lifestyle. One perhaps more in keeping with those general guidelines
acceptable to the world at large. Or, at least, to that world within which I strive
to write my own life’s story. My own little world-at-large.
Then come the
following days (after the first of the
year, that is) and some of those oh-so-determined resolutions begin to
weigh in with their respective demands of time, effort and even funds and I
begin to see them for what they really are. An exercise at trying to alleviate
an already overburdened conscience into believing that, this year, it really
will happen. This is the year.
Yet, as time
continues to march on, these determined resolutions become a little less
defined and a little less insistent until, in the end… well, you know how this old
story finishes.
What is real? As
years pass, we become molded to a defined style and presence. That inner material,
which once was somewhat more malleable, has hardened with the constant heat and
turns of day-to-day living. Not unlike a clay oven, life ministrations shape
us, hardening our exterior shell and inner core, giving us a glaze which we come
to accept and wear with a certain pride. It’s our badge; we have earned this
glaze and it is us. We don’t really want to change it.
For some, this is akin to falling into “conformity”. To look at oneself and to say: “I’m OK with what I
see, with who or what I am”. Mind you, this doesn’t exclude striving to improve or
attempting to change some things which, in changing, might improve the overall “product”.
But never at the risk of becoming someone else, someone who is no longer the
person I was before.
At that point my
reaction is more like… “well, if you don’t really like what you see… Why do you
insist and continue to look at it?”
I know… not very “PC”
but then… neither am I.
Selfish? Not
really. At this stage of the game (or at
any stage in life) it is my belief that real selfishness is to want someone
else to change his/her being in order to reflect that which I would prefer. To
have this person lose who he/she is in order to become an extension of myself.
So I can then be happy. The irony, when this is applied to couples is that by
insisting on this change, the one party who wants the other to “evolve” so, may
well be obliterating those very qualities which were attractive in that other
person in the first place.
So, when all is
said and done, I believe I’ll keep my own self the way it is. It’s taken many
years to get it to this incredibly well finished stage… well, ok, acceptable
stage. But it’s who I am as you are who you are. And we are both OK.
Come to
think of it, more than OK…
Cheers to that!!
Be
Well … Be Back!!!
Final Notes:
· Pray
for those who are
fighting an illness which may take them away from their loved ones… Every
request is heard, and counts!!
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