Out With The Old

Another reason why I’m not too taken up with people’s engaging of the New Year festivities is because in most cases it is a pretty superficial event.  Sentiments are given about how much we hope it’s a happy one, resolutions are rustled up, but even by the end of the month they are soon forgotten.  Mediocrity is soon resumed as the ritual of routine returns and we eek out the regular existence we’ve been scrambling to move on from for so long.  The reason for that, I reckon, is because the concept of something new taking place isn’t taken seriously enough.

In the middle of quite a few new things meself I realise that unless you prepare for the new at least in terms of being receptive to it and determined to mould yourself around it as well as take the initiative to shape it wherever you can, then it can be overwhelming.  Under those circumstances the options are to retreat into the routine of what you know or battle through the pain and inconvenience that the change is bringing and hand in hand with the eternal guide take it step by step.  All of this requires a fair amount of preparation – holistic preparation covering all elements of your make up because to truly embrace the new, you have to get rid of the old.  By that I don’t mean a rejection of the past and a refusal to acknowledge the vital lessons to be found in yesterday.

What is clear, however, is that the old ways may not work in the new day.  Just because it worked yesterday in yesterplace for yesterpurpose, it is by no means a guarantee that it will work today.  Imagine operating a relationship on that principle.  It won’t take long for it to stagnate because the reality of people is that in as much as you think you know them, there is so much more to know and they have so much more potential to grow and in growth there is change.  You are not the same person you were last week, last month and last year, but if you’re still treating yourself as if you were then there’s a great likelihood of frustration.

So shifting has to take place.  Put the past in the book and add it to the library of life that you’ll have to refer to at some point, but then open up a new chapter and accept what the myriad of wisdom sources around you have to share to create and shape the approach you’ll take to the new situation, this new day, this new opportunity to shine in being all that you were created to be and called to be for this moment.  Room has to be made to do all this and that room is where the old way was sitting comfortably having well established itself in your psyche as the modus operandi.  Shifting it takes time, shifting it can be hard, keeping it shifted can also be a nightmare, but shifting must take place and maintained shifting at that, so that the capacity is there to have the new to deal with the new.

The new word, the new strategy, the new source, the new relationship, the new habit, the new reference – whatever it may be.  In saying new as well, that is not to suggest it is completely original – never before seen by anyone or anything.  It is to say that it is not exactly the same as the old, it bears nuances that maybe completely unfamiliar but it is not to be feared or withdrawn from, but tackled wisely in co-operation with the eternal guide who actually provides revelation as to what steps to take, moves to make, words to say and motives with which to manoeuvre.

These are not the authoritative dictates of a wizened veteran of life, but one who himself is stumbling and bumbling about working things out in the new without being trapped in the old.  These are the contemplations of someone actively engaging with what the new looks like in so many areas of life and is convinced more than anything else that what worked before is not guaranteed to work here and now.  These are the thoughts of someone who realises there is so much to learn from yesterday and principles that definitely have to carry over, but just as the new life required the passing of the old, the new day and the new opportunity requires the passing of the old.

God give us the grace to move on from the temporal to hold onto the eternal.

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

dmcd