Renewal and Resilience…

Just a message focused on renewal and resilience on this the last day of 2019 and the end of the second decade of the millennia.

Although artificial, both are important constructs. The first has to do with new beginnings and starting over while the other has to do with mental toughness and the ability to overcome obstacles and weather adversity.

I have experience and a somewhat different and unique insight when it comes to both. Confronting your own mortality will do that either for you or to you.

The idea of starting over is a central component of virtually all spiritual belief systems. The need to try again appears universal. It’s finding the will and the opportunity that appears problematical. We search for reasons to try again when all we really need is the desire.

There is No Need to Wait

However, don’t need a celebration to begin anew. There is no need to wait. All we really need is the will and opportunity to recalibrate. That and the strength to follow through.

Resilience can be summed up in the following quote attributed to Aldous Huxley. He suggested that “Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.”

My cancer diagnosis and the stem cell/bone marrow transplant that followed gave me an entirely different perspective on renewal that goes far beyond hopes and wishes for a Happy New Year. For me, everything is new. Years filled with a second opportunity for firsts. While dealing with Graft vs Host Disease, clotting and pulmonary embolisms brought home the critical importance of being able to bend with the storm rather than contend against it.

Since all of this exists more in our minds than in reality, it all comes down to understanding, interpretation and the choices we make. The choice to begin again. The decision to acknowledge and transcend whatever adversity you may be facing.

While not necessary, the beginning of a New Year is as good a time as any to consider both.