There is no time, like the present. There is no time in which you will have as much power as you have right now, at this very moment.
I know that you’ve heard this a thousand times. Sometimes I think that my main purpose in life is to keep telling you this, over and over again. Because I know what it’s like to know something but not to live it. Not to be it.
Adversary can be a good teacher. Never did I think that I would be writing about the past year in the way in which it turned out. In March I lost my dad. It was a lesson. I swore then that there is no future, only the present in which we must do everything that we want to do or we simply won’t do it. I am turning 59 this year and feeling the pinch of all the things that I did not do, did not accomplish and wish that I had. His passing spotlighted all of it as I moved up a notch on the evolutionary chain.
But this past year, it just kept going. In August, I lost one of my rescue dogs very suddenly to an unknown heart condition. That morning I had been checking my finances, feeling that I was finally getting somewhere with my new business venture after months of stress, constant hours and hard work. I was feeling great about my past year and my new sanctuary/rescue efforts with my 6 dogs, one of them blind, 3 of them highly anxious and traumatized by a hoarding situation. And 3 foster cats who had been feral and starving. Nothing has ever given me more joy.
By the afternoon I knew something was wrong. By the next day I was $2,000 in the hole, one of my joys was gone to be replaced by grief and heartache, and absolutely gobsmacked by the state of veterinarian care at the present moment. Absolutely traumatized, the both of us. And I vowed again to cherish every day and to be grateful for every moment, because nothing lasts. I had just been marvelling at how far she had come, after a year in my care, and how far she would go in the year to come. I thought that there would be more time.
November rolls along and I’m still working hard, looking forward to the last day of a job I was doing with my ex husband. He had recently helped me out with a few things, really gone above and beyond and for the first time in over a decade we had let bygones be bygones and I had been really appreciating his presence in my life and that of our grown kids. He had agreed to work with me that day to help me do a job that had been ‘upgraded’ to something beyond my capabilities physically. I was enjoying having him with me. After a time of a lot of stress, I was appreciating the familiar. By the end of that afternoon he was lying dead in the foyer of the house that we were working. He had a heart attack. We were on a good track, finally. If there had been more time.
If I never got the lesson before, I got it loud and clear now.
We are on limited time. Each and every one of us. We are living our story. Right now. Each and every day. Those who are dear to us will not always be in our lives. No matter how we imagine it will be when the time comes, it always comes with a greater sense of loss than we think it will. It is always a bigger shock than we think that it will be. We always appreciate the good things more when they are gone. Wish that we had not made such a deal of the small things. Embraced what we had. Whatever that was. While we had it.
So my reasons for being so candid and possibly sounding more than a little morbid and pessimistic are to try to send home the message that now is the time. There is no time except for now to take action, to accept the facts of life. One of them being that we will not always be here. We are given a limited amount of time in this life to do the things that we want to do. There will not always be tomorrow. We need to prepare and look after the people that we will leave. And we need to prepare for life without them and look after ourselves.
As it turns out, today is January 1, 2023. Of course the holidays weren’t very festive this year. New Year’s Eve didn’t have the same level of excitement and appeal that it usually has for me. But I do still see 2023 as a new road. And what better day to start out on it.
Today is the day to pull yourself out of a rut. To wake yourself up and shake the dust off. To take the next few months where you may not be quite as busy as you possibly are with the summertime hussle.
We don’t always get a second chance. But we can make a fresh start.
The big question is…
What Would You Like To Do Today?
What Would You Like To Do This Week? This Month? This Year?
And get started.
January, in particular the beginning, is one of the times of the greatest hope and optimism for the year coming. Don’t waste it. Make your plan. Choose one thing. Break it down. Keep going.
One big thing daily.
One big step.
You’ll get there.
Or die trying. As harsh as that sounds, isn’t it a lot better than regretting all of things that you didn’t do?
Didn’t even get a chance to try to do?
All the best in 2023. Please take a moment to reflect on what I have said. On your past year. Your wins. Your losses. That is what life is made of. That is the makings of your story. The one that your loved ones will tell about you some day.
Make it a good one.
Love Jan.
PS, I’m going to be getting Fresh Start 2023 up and running soon. If you would like some help in getting on track with some focus, direction and support to get and keep moving in the right direction this year, be sure to sign up for my newsletter to keep you in the loop and get in on any bonuses, freebies and discounts. Have a great 2023!
I’m in the process of upgrading my website so you can sign up for updates on the homepage right now.
