A new year's hope

The last day of the year is a time for reflection, resolution and hope. As 2018 draws to an end, we begin to take stock of the past and look to the future and I, too, have been looking back at my year and considering my desires for 2019. While it's easy to become jaded, I think there's something special about taking a breath, getting some space and really taking time to think about the good, the bad and the ugly of the past year and then putting it behind you for a fresh new year. 

Reflection

2018 has gone by in the blink of an eye. For some of you it was a year of joy and for others, a year of hardship. Maybe your year, like mine, was a roller coaster of dizzying highs and crushing lows that had you holding on with white knuckles until it finally slowed down. 

While there were some huge moments that made up my 2018, I've been trying to remember how the smaller ones have shaped my year. Hanging out with friends in parks on a summer's day, discovering a pretty building in London I'd never seen before, laughing hysterically with my people from my Hub, recalling precious wisdom from a preach months later, that time I pushed through a run when I wanted to give up...

Life is coloured by the key events but it's the more insignificant ones that add the shading. It's easy to write off a year by remembering only the things that perhaps didn't go to plan, or rose-tint a year by remembering the things that did. No year is ever without it's bumps and no year is ever without it's delights, no matter how small those delights may be. It's by looking at the small, I get a clearer picture of the big. I see how I've grown, what I need to work on and what the things are that truly matter to me. 

This year I turned 30, I saw Taylor Swift in concert, I travelled to the USA, I attended a number of weddings, I ran a 10k, I started a new job, and I developed some deep, meaningful friendships. And that is to name but a few things! In some ways it's a been hard - a very hard - year, but when I look back, I know I've been blessed. 

Resolution

By now, almost everyone will have a New Year’s Resolution in mind. Even if you don’t believe in officially setting them (let’s face it, you’ll break them by 5^th January anyway), you might still have some things you want to achieve in 2019. Lose weight, eat more healthily, exercise more, learn a new language, go travelling, quit smoking – the list goes on. All ways we can improve ourselves; ways to become a better us. Because that’s what it’s about, really, this idea that we are not quite enough as ourselves. That on 1^st January you are chubby and lazy and unaccomplished but by next 31^st December – with enough willpower – you might (might) be a toned, wealthy, super traveller who’s fluent in Mandarin. Inevitably, this will not happen. Oh, but maybe next year – and the cycle continues.

There isn’t anything inherently wrong with wanting to improve yourself or using the new year to resolve do so. Quite the contrary, I believe we should always be moving forward and reaching for new goals. But often this resolution comes with a sense of dissatisfaction about ourselves. That just dropping that bit of weight, or by becoming more organised or by running that marathon – then, then we will be worth something. Then we can be proud of ourselves. But why can’t we be proud of ourselves as we are? Yes, maybe you didn’t achieve all you hoped for in 2018, but that doesn’t mean you are a failure.

Instead of thinking about the things you haven’t done, think about what you have. Maybe you’ve weathered a lot and have come out of it stronger. Or you volunteered every week. Or you deepened some friendships. Those aren’t insignificant things! Ok, maybe you’re not as fit as you like, or as well-read as you want to be. Improve that – but only if you want to. Don’t feel like you must be something more, don’t feel like you have to try to fit into a certain mould because you’ll be a ‘better’ you. You’re honestly enough as you are.

Let’s be kinder to ourselves this coming year.

Hope

Call it the naive Disney-fed optimist in me, but I can’t help springing into the New Year with anticipation. Perhaps it’s because of the aforementioned resolutions, but it also feels like a clean slate. That a fresh year brings fresh possibilities. That maybe this year will be exciting and adventurous, a year of blissful delights and dreams come true. Of course, life rarely turns out the way I want it to, and a year will always surprise me in one way or the other, for better or worse. Yet come December my mind will reset again to that of hopeful expectation. 

Christmas is the perfect time to restore the optimism I lost during the year. The Christmas story is about hope for the world, and it's something I'm trying to think about as I enter the next year. There's a couple of lines in the Christmas carol 'O Holy Night' which talk about this: 'a thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn'. Often this world can feel weary. Politics are precarious, society fractured and the environment crumbling, and everything feels a bit fragile. Yet despite all that, there is still a hope for the world. As 2019 comes leaping in, we can cling to that hope and perhaps see new and glorious things happen this coming year. 

2018 may have been the best year, or the worst, but let's shake it off and look towards the new year with renewed hope in our hearts.