“When you get, give. When you learn, teach.” Maya Angelou
I received an email from a friend, with these words of wisdom for the coming year:
“For each of us, eventually, whether we are ready or not, someday, it will come to an end.
There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours, or days. All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else. Your wealth, fame, and temporal power, will shrivel to irrelevance.
It will not matter what you owned, or owed. Your grudges, resentments, frustrations, and jealousies will finally disappear. So, too, your hopes, ambitions, plans and to do lists, will expire.
The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away. It won’t matter where you came from or on what side of the tracks you lived at the end. It won’t matter if you are beautiful or brilliant. Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.
So, what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?
What will matter is not what you bought, but what you built. Not what you got, but what you gave. What will matter is not your success, but your significance. What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught.
What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage, or sacrifice that enriched, empowered, or encouraged others to emulate your example.”
“I realized for the first time in my life: there is nothing but mystery in the world, how it hides behind the fabric of our poor, browbeat days shining brightly, and we don’t know it.” Sue Monk Kidd
Point Vicente Lighthouse – Palos Verdes, California
We’ve all overcome so much, and instead of dwelling on 2020, let’s reflect on what we can carry forward into 2021. I believe that reflecting on the past helps us to reshape our future.
The top ten takeaways froM 2020
10. We are not in control of our lives. If you’re a control freak, this was a challenging past year. We’ve learned to become more malleable about life.
9. Experiences in our lives were redesigned. We became creative using Zoom and other means to stay connected. This allowed us more time to reflect on ourselves and our lives and what we want and need to accomplish.
8. Friendships and relationships. We became more aware of the strong and weak relationships in our lives. The deeper and more intimate long-term relationships grew stronger and richer.
7. Family dynamics. Home schooling and working from home changed how we interacted. Some couples who had been separated by work because one of them traveled or worked long hours were thrust into discussing their problems in their relationships. This forced people to work-out their problems or come to the realization that their relationships were over.
6. Our pets were the ultimate winners in 2020. We interacted more with them, petted them more and loved on them more. In a sense, they became our “emotional support” animals.
5. Self-care became a priority. So many never had time or just kept putting off time for themselves. We came to the realization, if we are always running on empty and don’t take time and care for ourselves, it can affect us not only emotionally but physically. Getting in touch with our needs. Going for a short walk. Taking a relaxing bath. Shutting off the news for a few days. These small things can make a big difference in our quality of life.
4. The law of attraction. I’m not referring to sexual attraction. This law of attraction has to do with your attitude and outlook. If you’re negative, complaining and angry, chances are that’s what you’re going to receive from others. If you want kindness, love and good things in your life, you have to put out that energy.
3. Gratitude for what’s good. There are many little things in life to be grateful about. Be thankful you are not sitting in hours of traffic every day, now that you are working from home. Taking the time each day to thank people in your family, tribe or community. Nothing puts a smile on someone’s face as a simple thank you.
2. Offering grace to others. Millions of people went without this past year, died alone, suffered, lost loved ones. Listening and not talking when someone is sharing their hardships. Tom Hanks has a great acronym I try to live by: “WAIT” which stands for, why am I talking?
1. Never stop learning. We had more time in 2020 to read, learn a new skill, watch new content and even learn how to cook. We grew emotionally, intellectually and physically.
As we reset to live joyful, purposeful and intent-driven lives, let’s learn from our past and just hit that reboot button.
I’m confident all of us agree, we’re glad to see 2020 in our rearview mirror. My first post of 2020 I ended with a quote from Billy Wilder. He once said, “It’s easy to know the right thing to do after something has happened, but it’s hard to predict the future. Hindsight is 20/20 vision.”
Little did I realize what 2020 would have in store for the world. If I had any hindsight, I would’ve had a larger stash of toilet paper.
Hopefully, going into this new year, we all will allow ourselves to be more compassionate, give more unconditional love, not take our friends and family for granted and be better listeners as well as experience life to its fullest.
I have put together my 2021 goals, and because 2020 was such a nightmare, I plan to be diligent reaching as many of my goals as possible. I can see clearly now, the first and most important step to reaching any goal is, getting started.
It’s been over a century since French painter Edgar Degas lived and died. This self portrait of Degas is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of art in New York City.
More than any other of the great artist from the impressionist era, Degas was fascinated by the powerful and exciting world of ballet. Degas was masterly at capturing in his paintings the flowing movements of ballerina’s on stage, candid poses of young dancers waiting in the wings and in rehearsal halls and dance classes.
Edgar Degas – The Dancing Class 1871
Although Degas painted other subject matter, Degas was enchanted by what he called a “fairy like illusion of the ballet”. He admired ballerinas hard work which often the public never witnessed.
It wasn’t that long ago ballet performances were only enjoyed by the rich and famous and rarely did the underprivileged experience the beauty and wonder of ballet. Thanks to movies and television the public is much more aware of the beauty, hard work and discipline it takes to become a prima ballerina.
I’m an admirer of Edgar Degas paintings not for just his painting style, but also for the beauty and the grace of ballet. Live performances of ballet along with any movies or tv with ballet is one of my favorite visual experiences.
Although I never dreamed of becoming a ballerina, I always found ballet classes and ballet based workouts my favorite. In recent years, my go to workout is, Mary Helen Bower’s, Ballet Beautiful dvd tapes.
Mary Bowers is the prima ballerina who trained Natalie Portman for the 2010 movie, Black Swan. What I love most about Bower’s workout routine is I can do 15 minutes or more of Ballet Beautiful workouts in the privacy of my living room. The workouts are great for toning, elongating your body and just stretching to gain better mobility and balance. Doing this workout gives me energy and lifts my spirit.
If you’re looking to gain strength and quickly tone your body, you don’t have to be female, or join a gym or even be a prima ballerina to enjoy the benefits of Ballet Beautiful.
“Whatever holds our grief is massive.
It’s big enough and wide enough to hold the ocean.
This is why I’m here writing and pacing.
I’m trying to build something
big enough to contain it.”
Chronicles of a Blogaholic 