It feels like I've blown too many to get another one. Still, here it is … a brand new year.
Somebody knows what he's doing because, after all these years, I'm getting better at life, getting better at love.
And here I am trying to share what I have learned from falling down and getting up again.
What comes to mind:
1. Life is good. I am good, but no better than anybody else -- no worse, either.
2. We are intended to get better … and better and better, more and more aligned with our essence, or love, or God. They are all the same.
3. We were not intended to get it right the first time. That would mean we had nothing to learn.
4. It's OK not to accomplish everything on my list for the day or the year, as long as my effort wasn't halfhearted.
5. When my effort is halfhearted, I need to revisit the worthiness of the task at hand.
6. I can't love anybody else better than I love myself. I get to love me -- really well -- without feeling guilty.
7. The only way to be happy is to be true to myself. The only way to be unhappy is to be untrue to myself. And it's easy to trace any discontent back to a deviation from my truth.
8. It's as important to forgive myself as it is to forgive anybody else. And when I have forgiven me, I have done the hard part.
9. The people we are closest to are most apt to push our buttons, but they are still OUR buttons. And only we can heal what hurts beneath them.
10. Our friends are the ones who show us how to expand on who we are now in order to become more of who we (SET ITAL) really (END ITAL) are.
11. When we see behind the pain and anger in our enemies, we have no enemies, only friends.
12. We learn more by doing than by watching. And when we sit on the sidelines, there is a good chance that we are afraid to fail.
12. There is NO fear in love. And fear is the ONLY thing that keeps us from being all we can be.
13. Love is everything good; it is also an art. When we practice doing good, we practice love. We get better at it … better and better and better.
14. When we don't practice love, we get better at fear -- and ego and anger and resentment and blame and defensiveness and justification and complacency.
15. No matter how many times we fall down, and no matter how far we fall, we can always, always, always get up again.
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us," said Ralph Waldo Emerson.
So, as you stand up tall and take a deep breath to begin another new year, remember who you are. I am not talking about your name or what you do for a living. And, no, I'm not talking about degrees or net worth or past accomplishments. Remember what lies within.
Your essence is love. And you have another chance to live up to it … and it's not over until you do. There is no failing.
