The freshness to the New Year

Thursday, February 9, 2012

WE WERE just reveling the New Year 2012 and then came the Chinese New Year of the Water Dragon. As people say, “New Year, New Life”.

We are told by Fung Shui experts to follow rituals to make this a more auspicious year. We may listen to all these and in our own little superstitious way, we comply without being consumed by them. In the end, our destiny does not really revolve around these “to do” things but really how we organize our lives and ourselves.

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I like what Fr. Louie Galbines said in his homily. The New Year is indeed another beginning. We make resolutions, we hope for something better. But we notice that resolutions are broken even before they are made and we are back to where we started.

There are things that are the daily staple. They are things to be done or else all hell breaks loose. However, every day should not be a repetition of the previous day. A freshness has to be injected to the moment to moment things that need to be done and even add something to make the day more interesting.

This freshness is what makes our lives interesting and fruitful instead of boring and mundane. This “freshness” separate chores to acts of joy and something to look forward to.

This “freshness” is the act of reinventing ourselves. It may mean reinventing the daily things we do to make them more joyful, in fact, exciting.

Instead of making resolutions, let us reinvent ourselves. Do something new - a craft, a hobby, a business or just rearranging your home. Reinventing our surroundings gives it a new look and perhaps a new outlook. We can even be rid of the clutter that is totally useless or can be of good use.

But most of all, this “freshness”, this “reinventing” of ourselves is what broadens our inner perspective and ultimately our horizons.
Women have the greater need to reinvent themselves because of our biological makeup. Our hormones are tricksters in our lives. They make us wallow in depression or make us highly anxious. So there is a need for us to reinvent ourselves because we are the conquerors of the imbalances in our lives. So when these periods come, whether the monthly or the pre-menopausal, we need to reinvent ourselves when dealing with them.

When we go through the process of bringing the freshness into our lives, we must start with our interior. The process is bringing in the rebirth and the new year into ourselves. Instead of it being a grueling process, it can be an exciting moment. We take hold of our faculties, our nerves, our emotions, our psychological and physical as well mental disturbances.

But we can only do this if we ask spiritual assistance. We can never be alone, neither are we ever alone because there is a God Who walks with us in every moment of our life.

A good friend of mine Maite Elordi celebrated her birthday a few moons ago. Maite is a loving person, quick in her concern and care. Maite is a truly good daughter and a friend who is there in good times and bad and tries to help out whenever and however she can.

I was very touched once when I was sick and she would call periodically and, when I would be asleep, instructed my helpers to keep a good watch over me! That is true friendship! When my Mom recently passed away, she was the doting friend who offered whatever support and help she could extend. Thank you, Maite.

I have seen Maite reinvent herself and add a “freshness” into her life. She busies herself with her benevolent projects in Kabankalan, arranges her 92-year Mom’s mahjong sessions, lunches with friends, cousins and relatives, travels to explore new territories and expands her spiritual journey.

In Carmel, we learn that life is a journey. My cousin Dido, a clinical psychologist, says that we all have our own scripts in life. It is best that we stay within our own script, instead of putting ourselves in the storyline of others. Fr. Louie says that life is not just a daily repetition because that is mere surviving. We must be living.

Although I am not a Bible-reading person, this much I know because I hear it often: “Three things will last forever -faith, hope, and love - and the greatest of these is love.”

To sum them all up, we are all stars having our own scripts and acting out our journeys in this stage called life. The journey can be agonizing, if we make it a repetitive Hamlet tragedy of struggle, or it can be an exciting moment-to-moment living, if we live in faith and hope and, most importantly, if we bring a freshness to the way we love.