Thursday, January 5, 2006

A New Year's Muse

A new year, a time of new beginning--yet another chance to excel at this thing called life. I've never been one to get terribly excited about the start of a new year. I suppose it's as good a time as any to try to put into place and practice new habits, seek new ventures or what have you. I don't make a long list of resolutions that I know I can't possibly keep either. That is nothing more than a well known trap to set one up for immediate failure. I'm very well aware of the improvements I need to make; they're never too far from my thoughts.

One resolution I have made is to try to get back to writing in my online journal. I've been voluntarily absent for some time now. Too many things were happening at once; new job, different hours, difficulties coping with new job, the abrubt misery and overall dissension from so many people over AOL's sneaky little "let's decorate the top of everyone's journal with ads and maybe no one will notice" scheme. Ah yes, that was hugely popular and resulted in a mass exodus of many people whose journals I enjoyed following. There didn't seem to be any spare time to write anything and when I did find some time, it was spent trying to follow links hither and thither to discover where they went. And too, I once again got away from my original idea of writing for myself and fretted too much about whether my subject matter was worthy of reading or not. Who the hell cares? Have I mentioned before that I am my own worst critic? Add to this the fact that I began to think it was wrong and inappropriate to write about pleasant times and things that made me happy. People are dying needlessly in the messy Middle East war, thousands of people have suffered losses beyond my imagination due to hurricanes, floods and assorted assaults from nature which are beyond our control. Anything I might care to write about seemed paltry, superfluous and nothing more than fluff.

Suddenly, I didn't care anymore. It all became too much effort and the very thing which brought me so much pleasure and joy had become a bother, a chore, yet one more thing that had to be dealt with. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that when one feels this way, it's time to stop. And so I did. Now I feel ready to begin anew and continue to create a journal of my thoughts and experiences. This is something I like to do for my sake; if others enjoy reading my bits and pieces, that makes online journaling even more rewarding. I can't single-handedly solve the problems of the world but I can be grateful for the life I've been blessed with and I truly am...blessed.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

With all the crappy things that are going on in the world today, it's actually nice to read that someone is happy.  And I don't have to worry that YOU are going to turn into one of those sappy, peppy, always-the-cheerleader journals.  You are much deeper than that, and much more interesting.  Welcome back!  Lisa  :-]  http://betterterms.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

I enjoy what you write...even if it was never meant to be seen by anyone :)