Every ending is a beginning which is, of course, an ending

With apologies to the great Annie Dillard, who famously wrote, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” I have spent nine years and three months writing my Monday letter. It has, indeed, become a part of my life. I thank you for including it as part of yours. From the last 10 year-end messages –

• 2012: Sometimes, we need to keep on beginning until we really get the hang of something, but we always have a choice.

• 2013: If you don’t like something about your life or yourself, don’t wait for the calendar or advertisers to nudge you. Look inside. You already have what it takes.

• 2014: All the choices you made in the last 12 months, all the nows that you lived through – all that – makes up the year you have left behind. They are the you that you have created up to this time. Are you good with that person? … it’s your new year. It’s your now. It’s your moment to create the life – create the you – that you want; intentionally. One now at a time. Go for it.

• 2015: Honor the space between the end and the beginning. Rest there. Find comfort and sustenance there. A beginning will come in good time. And another, and another.

• 2016: In the spirit of naming the year as the Chinese do, what will you name this coming year for yourself?

• 2017: As we turn from the dark toward the light, I’d like to wish you the brilliance of love, compassion and wisdom.

• 2018: You have to do the work. You always have to do the work….don’t let Now be your excuse for not getting to Then. When it will be Now. And you’ll be thinking of your next Then.

• 2019: Would you, if you could? Whatever that means to you, I invite you to sit with it.

• 2020: Let your discarding of the old calendar be a metaphorical burial of [the year just passed] and the mounting of a new calendar on the wall be a symbol of hope, a new page in your journal to write your story on. Just go for it.

• 2021: New Year’s Day. Another time for the tradition of looking back and looking forward. January is named after the Roman god Janus, who had two faces so he could look forward and backward simultaneously. Janus is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, frames and endings – a fitting inspiration for the first month of our year.

May your week -- and your year -- ahead abound with blessings and happiness.