As we ring in the new year with hugs, kisses, and song (“Auld Lang Syne“), it feels natural to set our eyes on future settings, occasions, and resolutions. The most significant aspect of entering the promised, fresh horizons is captured beautifully by the contemporary writer Maria Popova. In a mind-lifting piece about the Irish poet John O’Donahue, Ms. Popova presents a convincing argument for “paying attention to . . . portals of possibility.”
Read her words and savor the start of 2024!
There are moments in life when we are reminded that we are unfinished, that the story we have been telling ourselves about who we are and where our life leads is yet unwritten. Such moments come most readily at the beginning of something new. To begin anything — a new practice, a new project, a new love — is to cast upon yourself a spell against stagnation.
Beginnings are notation for the symphony of the possible in us. They ask us to break the pattern of our lives and reconfigure it afresh — something that can only be done with great courage and great tenderness, for no territory of life exposes both our power and our vulnerability more brightly than a beginning.