New Year, Ancient Me
All the hype suggests that with each New Year we should, somehow, inherently wrangle a new person out of our previous selves to meet some societal idea of what we should be. You’ve heard the mantra “New Year, New Me.” where we are urged to shed one mask for another. Well, I’ve had enough of that. In the end, what do we actually accomplish?
Maybe we shed a few pounds, or worse, join a gym and spend a lot of money pretending we are somehow fashioning a new and improved version of ourselves when mostly, we just pass the gym on the way to some other obligation.
Maybe we stop bad habits.
Maybe we start them up again.
Maybe we succeed with a core desire for instance, practicing mindful gratitude every day (which I believe has more to do with who we are at our core than what we say we need to be) yet we give credit to the changing of a calendar for the growth of our soul.
Maybe, just maybe, we are going about this all wrong. (and yeah, that was a lot of maybes — you get the idea)
Why ditch one mask for another? Why ditch a version of ourselves without having a true grasp of the self we long for? And why schedule a metamorphosis on the calendar like a yearly exam? It simply isn’t organic or authentic.
Have you ever seen an old movie, you know, a romantic one — a black and white film where the hero looks across a train platform, the heroine looks back, tears in her eyes, and they just KNOW they love each other with the kind of undying love only old Hollywood could conjure?
I want that kind of love. For. Myself. I don’t want masks and I don’t want to try to create something that already exists. I want to LOVE with a capital LOVE, down to my bones, the person I show the world - you know, the one I am, most authentically. Not the person magazine covers or social media say I should be.
The best version of me exists in the ether. It is the me that existed in my purest soul form before I walked this earth with a human countenance. Why would I try to build a better me when there is no better me than my authentic, light-wielding, soul-self? I don’t need to build anything. I simply need to reveal myself. And I don’t need an artificial marking of time (which, let’s face it, isn’t a real thing) as an impetus for doing so. I can do it anytime. As a matter of fact, I do it often and with great reflection as I grow and learn, reaching spiritual touchstones in my soul’s evolution.
This is why I waited until now to do my New Year’s Post. Tired of your resolutions yet? Ditch the masks and grow!