Happy New Year

Reflecting on the problems which arose during the year ending has been and remains, for me, the foundation of hope that the new year will be, in fact, happy. The subtext is "it can't be worse", but I know by now, having been through this cycle 53 times, that of course it can be, and for many years has been. So, usually hope has come tinctured with a dash of anxiety, a sense that there are likely problems awaiting me that I cannot foresee, problems which in context will be as or more profound as those daunting me at year-end. But it feels different this year.

Why ? Because for the first time in a long while, I end this year and start the new one "happy". I said it to myself recently, "I am happy", and doing so shocked me because I can't really say I am much familiar with that. The very term - happiness - has always seemed to me to be a seductive and deceitful trap, one in which the bait is itself the net which falls on us, sooner or later. Our expectations can contain the seeds of success or failure, satisfaction or disappointment, hope or despair, all at the same time; if this is true, then it must also be true that our various states of mind are a function of our expectations more than anything else. What shapes our expectations ? The desire to control events, to engineer outcomes. It stands to reason, then, that one way to moderate the ebb and flow of happiness and despair is to moderate the instinct to control.

Relinquishing control is easier said than done for most of us, because control is the first tool we reach for in response to fear. What do we fear, usually ? For me, and I suspect for most of us, we fear that we are irrelevant, that our lives don't matter. So we end up spending most of our time figuring out half-baked schemes to makes ourselves feel, at least to ourselves, important. When the schemes don't work, we're not only disappointed that we didn't achieve the marker of relevance we desired, but we've managed to add to the store of references supporting the conclusion that we don't, in fact, matter, and moreover, that we shouldn't. But it's what we do : year after year, plan this or the other project for success - projects to proclaim to ourselves that our lives are significant.

I believe that the reason this year seems different to me is that because I have grown spiritually this year (however modest and incomplete), I do already feel significant (enough) without having any need to create self-relevance. Significant how ? In all candor and with no embarrassment, it seems evident to me that the less I think about myself the way I always have, as an independent albeit vulnerable being solely responsible for crafting my world and a failure if I don't, the richer life seems. Indeed, I am coming to learn by experience that "to be spiritually minded is life and peace" (Romans 8:6).

But "happy" ? Yes, and one reason is that I've learned that I'm the guy He's referring to : "...that the works of God should be made manifest in him." (John 9:3). Another is that I am blessed with good kids that know I love them and that I have done the best I can for them. Another is that I've learned to truly recognize, accept, and reciprocate the love of my wife. Indeed, one of the prayers I've recited for awhile is "Help me to learn love"; that prayer, too, is being answered. I feel fortunate to say that, to say all of this. Feeling blessed is an excellent way to feel happy. It no longer seems that complicated.

So, I can now genuinely say, Happy New Year !