Fresh thinking for a new year

An open invitation to new experiences...

Like a child on his first visit to the seashore, with eyes, hands and soul open to drink in the new experience, we can move toward the coming year with excitement and hope: ready to explore, eager to shape the pliable sand as we please. We are on the edge of that epoch called a New Year. Confident expectation of being able to do positive good in this year yields the energy we need to face its challenges. What are the positive plans that can energize this New Year? Three shining values stand above the others.

1) Plan to grow - Like the concentric whorls on a seashell that grow larger year by year to accommodate the living creature inside, plan to grow your life. Expansion of heart, mind, skills and community involvement releases new energy. You choose which aspects of your life to grow and what direction to move toward; like that shelled creature, you are the architect of your home.

2) Live today for joy - Waves come in, waves go out, days come, days go. Be resolute about not falling into dull complacency from monotony. Notice instead the variations - and design your own joyful variations, like a child building sand castles. It is the very transience of the sand castles that brings delight to onlookers. I've watched strangers help my sons build a sea wall to protect their castles by the sea - holding onto joy in the middle of crisis is everybody's energy builder.

3) Link arms with like-minded people - Corals, those living creatures who have built the largest structures on our planet, are tiny organisms each linking to the next to form reefs. Individually, they are no larger than a chocolate chip (when feeding), but they build on the work of the previous generation and together have created unimaginable beauty. Our lives, our work, our interests, when linked with the effort of others, can create works of wonder.

Connecting with others, multiplying joy, and growing across many dimensions, will energize us and set a positive outlook for the New Year. Like the child at the end of his day on the seashore, sandy and tired but with a bucket of treasured shells and an internalized knowledge of waves, sand and saltwater creatures, may our experiences in 2008 bring us joy, results and relationships to treasure.