Wrapping up the Year

We are coming to the end of the year and we hear the highlights of 2015 from the perspective of journalists of one sort or another.  It may be useful for individuals to take a look at their personal year and evaluate how it looked in January and how many expectations were achieved and where you fell short.

My January was full of enthusiasm for the spring, anticipating a terrific year in the garden, a European trip in the summer and more achievements for the fall.  Despite breaking my wrist in May I felt I had a terrific first half of the year, in fact a great 8 months but to be honest I have felt a little bit of floundering these last four months.  Thinking about it now I believe I just such a successful first year in retirement that it was going to be hard to match that momentum going forward.  Considering further I think I am being too hard on myself because one shouldn’t plot out year after year because then you are not living in the moment which is something I am learning about in my study of Buddhism.

So perhaps I am feeling slightly disappointed that I didn’t have more visible signs of a successful year because I didn’t build anything these last four months but not being visible doesn’t mean there hasn’t been growth or improvement.  I fondly hope that I am learning something of value with my studies in theology even though I am far from being the angelic being one would perhaps hope for.

So what I know for sure is this – we all need to cut ourselves some slack when we do the evaluation; you can be honest with yourself but you also need to be gentle and compassionate.  After all, we are only human.