“Sensual pleasures have the fleeting
brilliance of a comet; a happy marriage has
the tranquillity of a lovely sunset.”
Ann Landers
Shine On
Keep Moving Forward
“You may not control all the events that happen to you,
but you can decide not to be reduced by them.”
Maya Angelou
Happy New Year.
Day one of 2016. New Years Day has always been a springboard for most of my life changing new beginnings. But as we all know from experience, it’s not easy to keep those resolutions. I think this 20th Century proverb I found pretty much sums it up:
Your New Years resolution
Resolve to renew
All your old resolves.
And add a few
That are new.
Resolve to keep them
As long as you can.
What more can a
Poor man do.
Weeks before New Years Eve, I began making my list of goals for the new year. I reviewed my list from 2015 and was happy that I did reach some of my goals. However, the goals that I didn’t reach, have now moved to the top of my 2016 goal list.
As I prepared and pondered over my Goals for the Year, I happen to read a post from a fellow blogger, Erika Kind that inspired me. Erika wrote about how our past does not define our future. She wrote about . . . how the experience you made in the past is not the experience that lies in the future.
Never believe that whatever happened in the past is direction for the future.
When I read this post, a light went off in my head. Her writing rang so true to what I wanted to work on for the coming year. Not only to work on, but to make it my mantra. To learn not only to let go of the past, also to learn from the past. And most importantly, no matter what happens to keep moving forward.
Shine On
Winter Walk
“If you’re walking down the right path and
you’re willing to keep walking,
eventually you’ll make progress.”
Barack Obama
Shine On
Good Reads Goal
“A man only learns in two ways,
one by reading, and the other by
association with smarter people.”
Will Rogers
Congrats! You have read 100 books of a goal of 100!
The beginning of the year, I made a commitment on the Good Reads website to read 100 books by the end of the year. Well, I’m happy to report that I was able to reach my goal.
I enjoy reading, so it wasn’t that difficult to read all the books I read. Although, I would have liked to read more of the classics. But while on my reading journey, I discovered some new authors and ended up reading most of these new authors books.
My plan for 2016 is to continue reading more with the coming year. However, I need to do more writing this year than reading. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to concentrate more on my writing.
I figure, if I put as much effort as I did to reading this past year into writing, I’ll be able to finish my novel by the end of 2016. With any luck, by this time next year maybe my novel will be on someone else’s Good Reads goal.
Shine On
Holiday’s Past
“I like to compare the holiday season
with the way a child listens to a favorite story.
The pleasure is in the familiar way the story begins,
the anticipation of familiar turns it takes,
the familiar moments of suspense, and
the familiar climax and ending.”
Fred Rogers
The day after Christmas I found myself watching old Christmas TV shows and movies, like The Twilight Zone and A Christmas Story. I watched an episode of The Twilight Zone from 1960 that I’ve watched maybe a dozen times, but this time I saw the story in a whole new light.
Rod Serling is a favorite writer of mine for a very long time. My admiration for Serling stems from his ability to take a short story about an individual and make you care what happens to that person. He could show humanity in so many different lights. Always subtly weaving into each story a political or human antidote.
In the violent world we live in today, watching old Christmas shows and movies gives us a feeling of comfort. We’re familiar with the story. We know how it ends. Yet as an adult, each time we watch, we see something new or different. Each time we learn something new about ourselves and about holiday’s past.
Shine On
