Welcoming in a New Year

New beginnings can be fun, pleasant and a bit frightening--especially at times when we feel we have no control over the future. It seems that optimists like me tend to think that we do have some control over enough things to bring about some element of happiness, contentment--or at least ways to minimize anxiety--for our personal lives.
Living our lives and making decisions based on the past, and assumptions that we make from that is a tricky thing. Yes, we can and should learn from history. . but when 'the past' that we use for our conclusions is really a warped sense of reality, or poor sense of worth, that doesn't work--and is not the best way to make decisions.
Perhaps optimism, in part, is a trick of balancing emotion and reason.
and sometimes identifying the actual emotion and what is rational can not be done without using other people as 'sounding boards'. . or other writers' thoughts and experiences to gain perspective.

When we surround ourselves with people who are mostly similar to ourselves-- who tend to think like we do, and enjoy the same things as we do, then we may be insulating ourselves from the ability to break free of habits or irrational thinking. There are many examples of this: teens who feel like their parents are 'mean' and don't understand them, and find gangs or peer groups that will accept their warped self-perceptions; affinity groups who believe that their political or religious philosophy is the best or only way to solve particular problems; labor union leaders --or corporate managers--who believe that being flexible equals being weak, and they will be taken advantage of. I guess the same goes for peace-loving folk and optimists.

BUT: how can we try to make our personal contentment benefit others around us--manifest itself in the world?
We have created a world that understands and adapts to competition and self-preservation so much more naturally than to dialogue and collaboration. As countries, we act, and then react; we allow egocentric, hair-trigger personalities to run the board rooms and shop floors and living rooms of our nation-- and we don't call them to accountability for the damage they cause.

Peace-loving people have a hard time dealing with hot heads, and yet we must learn to. When we pray and wish for 'peace on earth'. .we must begin in our own heads and hearts to ask what we tolerate that is not promoting peace.. . not just what what we can do to create more personal peace. Perhaps the answer is learning to confront and deal with conflict in new ways. LM