Get Real In The New Year

With another new beginning, we can choose to be kind, compassionate and loving.

- Mary Boutieller

Shed the skin of your past lives and welcome the possibility to begin again, to start over, to be the person you were meant to be. There is always a tinge of excitement for me as one year ends and another begins. I become rather philosophical about the year that has passed—the good and the bad, the times I when haven’t been true to myself and the times when I have felt really “real.”

As author Margery Williams writes in The Velveteen Rabbit:

That makes sense to me. I often feel as if I am becoming more real each year as I grow in experience and wisdom, as I learn the lessons from another season in my life, as I distinguish between the person I am and the person I want to be. In paraphrasing a quote from Gandhi: Can I strive each day, in my actions, thoughts and words, to be the person I wish to see in the world? Much like the Golden Rule, we get to choose how we treat others and ourselves. My hope is that with another new beginning, we choose to be kind, compassionate, real.