By: Ebirim, Joseph Ogadinma
Level: 1
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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Amidst the celebrations that adorns festivities which mark Christmas, the end of a year and the beginning of a new year, there is unarguably the need to ask myself salient questions about how well I have spent the passing year and how prepared am I to begin the new year and to make it a much better year than the passing year. The last few days of the year affords me the opportunity to take stock of my year in retrospect, identify my flaws and make resolutions to be a better me in the New Year. It is a time to plan to succeed better than ever because failure to plan is a great plan to fail.
Indeed, the advancing year wouldn’t come by mistake; it has been designed to come so by the maker (God) and as such because nothing happens by chance but for a purpose, it becomes pertinent that approaching the new year must be an act carried out well equipped and prepared to give it the best so as to expect the best at the end of the coming year. Indeed going through the New Year with all the regrets of the past which include my mistakes and all the habits which I regretted displaying and which I keep promising to change from will mean making a new year as old as the past year. This can be likened to as flouting the warning given in the old books about putting new wine (new year) in old wineskins (old habits) – Matthew 9:17.
I am often excited whenever an application in my phone or computer notifies me of an available upgrade. I am always enthusiastic about what new features to expect. Interestingly, getting a new update often costs more money or even more data to download but a new upgrade often gives a better and more beautiful look and user-friendliness to my already existing application. New good habits, new skills, and improvement of our existing self albeit our career, spiritual, business and family life often brings about that awesome feeling of newness, positive growth and leads to better acceptability of ourselves by those around us. An American writer, Daniel Willey likens self-upgrade as innovation when he quotes thus: “I like to think of innovation as upgrading your current self. This upgrade helps you to more effectively deal with changes happening around you and to be able to think in a more complex manner than before.” In his thoughts, a vital importance of self-upgrade is seen – the ability to be better position to deal with changes happening around us. Our world is a dynamic one filled with changes and self-upgrade is one feature which disposes us to deal with the demands of these life’s changes. Education is a form of self-upgrade and the various experiences we encounter daily can be transformed to upgrade tools when we look into the positive aspects of every circumstance with a sheer determination to learn from them, the experiences of which we can use to deal with similar challenges in the future. It costs us some extra efforts, self-will and determination to see to it that the self-upgrade we desire is accomplished but in the end it is always worth it. Upgrading or improving various old or unpleasant aspects of our lives is an important way we can make new, the coming (brand new) year.
A new year affords me an opportunity to set new goals and work hard to obtain them. This will mean working hard to invent a better you. It is also a part of the self-upgrade discussed earlier. This time, emphasis is shifted from correcting old habits to inventing new experiences, setting and accomplishing new targets, etc., all geared towards competing with self and being better than the former self. Veteran vocalist and songstress, Celine Dion quotes thus: “I’m not in competition with anybody but myself. My goal is to beat my last performance” and a popular quote further elaborates her point and even gives a hint to the remarkable success of the legendary musician. If you continuously compete with others, you become bitter but if you continuously compete with yourself, you become better, the saying goes. This aspect of a new resolution is capable of springing one from an unemployed graduate in 2016 to a super entrepreneur and senior business manager in 2017. This highlights the power of the mind and of good attitude to sustain that which the mind has conceived.
As we move into the New Year, we can make it a new one and refresh ourselves with new resolves and plans to be better than our past. It will profit us tremendously to witness uncountable improvement in the New Year so that at the end of the year, our stock taking will be filled with nods of satisfaction and not tears of regrets which breed depression and an awful feeling of backwardness. Tomorrow will surely come and the coming year will surely end and God keeping us alive, there shall come a time like this next year when we shall assess how new our new year 2017 have been compared to the former 2016. Therefore, now is the time to plan and determine to make the New Year new in all ramifications. If for any reason, the importance of doing so dares to skip our minds, here is a poem to recite
A new day is here and it overcomes yesterday
A new gift excites our sense of ownership
Inventions affords us better methods and easier ways
Upgrades unleash unknown beauty of present realities
New experiences aids us deal with emerging challenges
There is strength and grace in newness
A new me in a new day, a new opportunity to be better
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)Loading...
