Taking Stock

All that really belongs to us is time; even he who has nothing else has that.
--Baltasar Gracian

This is the time of the year when we traditionally take stock of how far we've come in the past 12-months, assess our current status, and begin to look forward at what the New Year can bring.
Not what it will bring...
Not what it may bring...
What the New Year can bring.

Many of you will be making New Year's resolutions: resolving to do something different; resolving to make something better; resolving to change course or take a different tack.

All well and good and worthy excercises--but be realistic in your consideration of how you fared in 2009, and what your expectations should be for 2010.

I've heard many comments about being glad when 2009 is put behind us, that it was a horrible year, that this was the worst decade, and of fears of what the "oughts" might portend for the decade that is to follow. That kind of thinking is foolish and short-sighted.

Unless you're taking a dirt-nap, 2009 was a good year for all of us. Even if you lost a job, lost a friend, lost a mate, lost a parent, lost a child--all horrible and traumatic events in anyone's life--there is a net effect from having gone through that experience that is a postive: You survived it.

Even if the outcome wasn't what you wanted or expected, the fact that you got through the experience can be viewed as a benefit--if you learned from it, were strengthed by the adversity, or at the very least, now can count that event as part of your experiential data base.

Do not disdain 2009; do not fear 2010. Embrace the old year as a plateau from which to launch yourself to higher highs in the new year. And cherish the truth that even if you lost it all in 2009...if you haven't reached room-temperature, there's time enough in 2010 to git 'er done.