Letting Go Of Last Year

Last year is gone, and going forward things will be different. Last year’s you is gone, and going forward you will be different. That’s the thing – everything changes. Regardless if last year was enjoyable or terrible, no matter. This year will be different. You can try to hold on to it, but all you’ll get is rope burns. Or, you can take comfort in the impermanence.

Your company is different; your competitors are different; your customers are different. In fact, everything is different. And what you did last year won’t get the same response today. Yet we hold on. It’s difficult to see things as they are when there’s so much comfort in seeing things as they were. Even if things weren’t so good last year, there’s comfort in seeing things as they were.

Toughest of all is to see yourself as you are. (I’m not talking about the body stuff – older, grayer, more wrinkles – that’s easy to see. I’m talking about the inside stuff.) On the inside, you are not what you were last year. You don’t have to know how you are different; just take comfort that you are different. Take comfort that right here, right now, as you sit, you are different, and so is everything else.

It’s difficult to plan out how things will go this year; and it’s impossible to predict how you’ll grow. Things will change; you will change; and putting yourself in that frame of mind can be helpful.

Take time to celebrate the upcoming impermanence that will surely find you.

image credit:www.freestock.ca

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Mike Shipulski brings together people, culture, and tools to change engineering behavior.  He writes daily on Twitter as @MikeShipulski and weekly on his blog Shipulski On Design.