Happy New Year!

"Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one."

I saw that on another social networking site; it's not the typical New Year sentiment expression. Maybe that's where the appeal comes from, but I also just think it's an awesome way to look at the opportunities a New Year brings. Think about it: within a book, say a 365-page book, how often is it just a sequence of really awesome things all strung together with an awesome ending and everything is just happy-happy-happy? Never. Because a book needs plot and plot needs conflict and conflict generally requires some sort of negativity. But even when something bad happens - a hero gets thrown off course, love is unrequited, a loss is experienced - it's just a page or two of the whole story. Things don't always work out by the end of the book, but they don't end without hope or promise or knowledge that it really isn't the end. Life is definitely never a "happily ever after," but it's never really a "everything is gone and over" either.

So life is like a book; or at least that's how I think I want to live and think in the next year. Sure, it could be a page turner or it could be an easy read or it could be a challenging required read that I have to push myself to get through. It could be full of characters and adventures or it could be a tale of a personal journey of betterment. Those are things that I don't know, but there are things that I do know also. I don't want it to be a trashy summer read of a book, I want it to be a beautifully crafted novel worthy of the classics and the most praised of literature. I don't want it to be shallow and emotionally neutral, I want it to be rich and moving and full of real life. Those are things over which I have control.

Life is for living, in the good times and the bad times, in the hard times and the smooth times. I'm not really a resolution-ist, because I don't think you need a new year to make changes in your life. But, I will make one this year because I think it is appropriately unspecific for something like the start of a new year. My new years resolution is to fight stagnation in everything I do. In every way, I want to grow and change and learn and progress. Or even regress, because although it isn't positive, that is still something I am capable of learning from.

So happy new year to everyone, may your new book be riveting and full of growth and understanding. I'll be reading and writing my way through the New Year, but never in place of actually living.