New Year, New You: Embracing a Different Vision for 2021
Getting to Grips with Uncertainty and Cultivating Compassion for Others: Robyn’s Vision for the New Year
New Year’s resolutions have never really made a tremendous impact on my life. I’m a goal-orientated person and thoroughly enjoy the journey of working towards my goals, but I don’t really believe in the magic of a new year. I’m not pessimistic, I swear!
I understand the appeal of a new beginning, but to me, nothing significant happens when the clock strikes 12 and brings us into January the first. Our habits don’t change, our thoughts don’t change, and our behaviours don’t either. But one thing rings true for me: time marches forward, and with that, everything in nature changes.
Everything is continually changing; the earth is in a continuous motion as it rotates on its axis, there is life and there is death, the sun rises and the sun sets. These changes are in rapid motion, and since the coronavirus pandemic, I’ve become even more cognizant of the ever-changing nature of reality. Life, as we know it, has changed.
In 2020, we’ve had to adapt to a new normal; meeting new people on video calls, interacting with our friends and family with masks on our faces, all the while feeling loss in more ways than one. Suffice it to say, it’s all been a tough pill to swallow.
Enter 2021. And still, many of us face unavoidable uncertainty in our professional and personal lives. The question that I ask myself is: How will I deal with uncertainty in a time of slow change?
What’s comforting to me is contemplating uncertainty. Do we ever know for certain that we will wake up tomorrow? We would like to believe that we are in control, but we’ve never had much control to begin with. It’s daunting to think about the lack of control we have, but what I’ve realized is that when I resist change, change becomes unbearable. I had to learn the hard way to work with the current to avoid needless suffering.
In Buddhist philosophy, the concept of impermanence explains the nature of change. If you observe the nature of reality, you’ll notice the rapid change from moment to moment; a bird flying from one tree to the other, a moth dying while entrapped in a spider’s web, clouds emerging and dispersing, and so forth. In the same breath, we are also changing, as we transition into different stages of life, from childhood to old age.
But, you may ask, how does this relate to what is currently happening?
Everything changes. And the pandemic is subject to change too. We don’t have a lot of control now. And perhaps, after all this time, we’ve only had the illusion of control. So loosening our grips on the little control we do have could help us ease into this new phase of uncertainty.
Reframing my perspective, being open to change, and being adaptable is what I’m actively working on embracing. I’m not claiming that this is easy. I don’t want to downplay, oversimplify, or diminish the suffering many of us face during these unprecedented times.
Cultivating compassion for ourselves and others is also vital for embracing these changes. The collective change is painful and more than ever, we need each other to make it through this wilderness. In the meantime we can extend our generosity, patience, and kindness to those around us. We can ask for help when we need it, we can offer help when we can give it, and we can take better care of each other. Check in on your friends, co-workers, neighbours, family, and especially those among who are most vulnerable in this time of social isolation, those who are living alone.
So, my vision for this year is to embrace uncertainty and cultivate more compassion; to take life moment by moment, to notice even the minuscule changes, and to continue to share compassion with others. All this while keeping the adage of the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus in mind: ‘Change is the only constant in life.’
How are you dealing with the changes in your life?
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