Before the New Year

A few hours from now it will be a new year. There have been a lot of things happening in the year that I’m leaving behind. I had my fair share of happy and difficult times. There were moments when I felt like crying and others when I was truly happy and at peace. I have learned a lot about myself over the last 365 days.. I have reflected about all the experiences that have shaken me and which touched me on a deeper level. I would be lying if I said that I have now all the answers but, what I can say is that the periods where I found the time to reflect and contemplate on the nature of existence has opened my awareness to a new reality.

Many of the things I learned I tried to record on the pages of this blog. I hope to have been faithful to my experiences. But, I admit, memory is what it is and how ever we try to reproduce it, we can never be totally sure that our memory reflects our real experience. Words, concepts and the world we built often shape the way we interpret our experience and how we view things. That why it is more important to be aware of ourselves because many times what we think is right and correct is but a product of other factors that create the illusion of order and continuity,.

I don’t intend this entry to be long. But I wonder what the next year will bring. There is so much that can happen. We live in a world full of uncertainty where nothing is permanent. We may think that how we look at things is complete and correct but we can never truly escape our past, our culture, our language and our history - to name just a few. We are intrinsically connected to those around us. We have much to learn about our world but we cannot learn that lot if we remain closed in our comfortable view of the world without thinking about the important things in life.

I will continue writing over the next year. Yet, there is no guarantee that I will be here tomorrow or in the coming days, weeks or months. This is not being pessimistic or gloomy. It is being realistic. It is a reason to appreciate the life we have and to make a real effort to grow in understanding and to cultivate our compassion to other people. After all, we all face the same human experience of life,. A similar desire for peace and happiness.