Michael Jensen

Opinion

Today is the day for new beginnings

Sunday, January 1, 2006

Happy New Year! Today is a day for new beginnings. For resolutions. It's a day that begins with new promises for a new year. Each in our own way hopes and prays for fresh opportunities and clean slates. Forget the shortcomings of the past year and head out into this new year with determination and resolve.

It's also a time of reflection. We look back at 2005 and make a mental note of where we traveled in our lives. Granted, experts will tell us that our resolutions will too often be short-lived and the promise will all-too-soon give way to reality. But we're all dreamers in a way. So today is a day for dreams perhaps.

My humble tradition continues. I use the week between Christmas and the New Year to clean-out my desk and my files. Been doing that for as long as I've had a desk and files. It's my simplistic way of purging the unfinished tasks and wiping the slate clean. It gives me a sense of accomplishment.

Today I'll take my little desk calendar from 2005, secure it tightly with a rubber band and stack it along with dozens of others from years' past. On those pages are chronicled my life - or at least my business life. And I'll replace that 2005 version with a new, fresh calendar and turn it to the first page. Like the new year, that calendar is fresh and without blemishes. It is up to me to fill those pages.

I think the new year should actually begin in April or May when Mother Nature brings us a fresh new beginning. Instead we mark the beginning of each year in cold, dreary conditions that - to me - get the new year off to a slow start. If the weather matched the promise of a new beginning, I think it would somehow be easier.

Unlike my father, I'm not real big on setting goals and making resolutions. Maybe I've fallen short enough times that I don't want to set myself up for failure. Then again, that's probably the wrong approach toward goals. Instead, I'll draw a mental map of where I hope to be in the new year. But I'll also recognize that circumstances don't always match my goals and it's me who has to change and adapt most of the time.

Enough rambling for one day. Start your year off in the best possible way you can. Then try to repeat that approach each and every day. And when you fail, recognize that tomorrow is a new day with bright promise.