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Meeting the Moment
A new year is upon us. Fresh. Like newly fallen snow. Sparkling with a sense of possibility. Not yet affected by mistakes or missteps, good news or bad news, resolutions kept or partially carried out. The new year simply arrives. In one moment, it is 11:59:59 and in the next moment, it is a new year - 2018 becomes 2019. Lights flash. The ball in New York Times Square falls. Fireworks blast over the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Couples kiss. Champagne is toasted. But for time, well, time is just doing time. No big deal. It ticks over into the next moment. As it will do all year long.
You may have a few wishes and wants for the new year. You might even have a new year’s resolution or two. Decades ago I used to write, in great detail, a one-year and a five-year projection for things that I thought might occur in those time periods. It was an insightful exercise for me each year and I always looked forward to sinking into that evening of writing, tapping into my hopes, dreams and anticipations. I had categories for work, personal, family, health. The evening of writing complete, I would safely tuck my words away. Twelve months later, before settling in to write my next instalments, I would pull out the one- and five-year projections related to the year just finished and I would read through what I had predicted. If you want to have a good laugh at hopes and dreams and plans, I recommend engaging in this practice for a decade. I had some of my best laughs while reading what I had guessed five years earlier. My projections were never accurate. Not even close!
But, more importantly, this practice gave me an opportunity to get to know the mind I inhabited one year ago and five years ago. Always illuminating and humbling. Dreams came true that I didn’t even have hints of in the years that came before. And, I faced devastations that I never could have known to predict. Time was doing time.
Here is some of what I learned: While written hopes and dreams were great Guideposts, they were not great Action Plans. Carrying out a plan can create one kind of satisfaction, for sure, but often there are losses along the way. Little things missed. If you approach a new moment with the goal of carrying out an action on behalf of a plan, it is quite a binary interaction and many subtle opportunities are lost. Instead I have learned to stay rooted in the Guideposts while letting discernment and action arise.
If the Guideposts are clear, maybe the Action Plan is simply to meet the moment.
(Not so simple to do.)
What different kinds of Woken Up and Grown Up capacities would this call on?
I remember once asking an author friend of mine why she thought her book had been so successful when it was published over thirty years ago. Her response was, “It met the moment.” It met what was being hungered for at that exact time. Some people call that luck or coincidence. I think she was awake to the longings of the moment. Not her longing, but the longing.
So, in this year ahead, here are my wishes for you…
May you fully meet as many moments as you can.
And may you meet them with an open mind.
May your Guideposts support your well-being and growth.
And may you discern their adjustments through a receptive body.
May you wonder each day, what is this moment asking of me?
And may you respond with a kind heart.
From all of us here at ICC, we wish you all of this and more as you meet this new year.
Please, enjoy yourself!
