Two Thousand and Nine

Well, the ball dropped.

I'm excited for this new year and all the changes... or rather, transformations, that will inevitably happen in my life. I had a mild conversation with the b-friend about the difference between change and transformation. With transformations, the differences between now and then are based on the kind of person you used to be... your new self still harbors all of your past and all of your present. Your history and your experiences become a great factor in what kind of person you want to be, or find yourself becoming. Change however... change is like a light bulb that goes from blue to red.

People go through transformations... and I think that is what gets lost in the minds of those who resent change, or who are afraid of change. People don't change, they transform... whether it's bad or good, an improvement or a detriment, it's never a solitary, separate change from who they once were. And for those who regret their past, deny their past... for those who are embarrassed of their trials and roots, understand that these experiences cannot escape you. We are all products of our own history, and every bit of history is equally responsible for who we are or who we are becoming.

Lastly, we have the power to transform in the direction we want. We have full control of our lives. I'm not much of a fanatic of destiny or fate... we meet people ad we find ourselves in situations all by chance, and the development and outcome of these relationships and situations are in our hands. I once read a quote in my high school agenda book (one of those quotes of the week) that said, "Life is 10% of what happens, and 90% of how you react."

For every action, there is a reaction. For every time that we can react negatively toward a situation, we can find a way to react positively. I find that with the presence of a hardship, it is so easy for us to forget about all the great things in our life. With one difficult hill to climb, we suddenly lose the reasons why we are still walking and still climbing in the first place. No doubt that others have more great things than us... but if we were to think about it in such a way, there are plenty of those who have less great things than us. To binge on the former and neglect the latter is to take our wealth for granted.

Perspective. Choose your perspective.

Everyday we make choices: what to wear, what to eat, what to do, what to say... make a choice on what to think.

"Be the change you want to see in the world." -Gandhi

This New Year is clay your hands, and so mold it into what you would like it to become.