The Attitude Lounge
“A good year to you. May it return to meet us again.” – African Christmas greeting
It is going to be a wonderful year. And so let us modify our attitudes to enjoy the moments life throws at us. That is all there is to this New Year. A few days ago when the year started, we wished the best of life for each other. From good health to prosperity, we spewed out positivism and the best of intentions to family, friends and even foes. But as Margaret Thatcher once mentioned, “the Good Samaritan did not only have good intentions,” Scripture makes us aware of the good actions that followed his thoughts. It is a semblance of that attitude we really need in this New Year. We need to let our actions match our language, so that we can move hearts along the path of the common good.
No one can really tell what the year has in store for us, but as humans, we are endowed with abilities and resources to mould the year to be as good and as prosperous as we bellowed out on the first day. It would demand the best of ourselves or as Paul the apostle in his letter to the Romans urged them “to present themselves as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.” If we would treat all the moments of this New Year like we are standing before our Creator, we would be living sacrifices for each other.
Our wishes and resolutions call for all of us to commit ourselves to do a little more for each other and to pursue the common good. We have to commit to make life a lot more meaningful and prosperous. It is within our power and it is within our reach. To quote an old adage, “we have to bloom where we are planted.” We all can make life a little better if we would recognise our differences situations and perspectives as a strength. We need to appreciate that “diversity is lovelier than sameness,” for it allows us to tap into each other and make us better able to face challenges and adapt to changes.
For starters, we need to understand that our present self, and the present state of life; is a work-in-progress. Sadly, too many amongst us unconsciously, and mistakenly perceive it as the finished state. It is the reason for the ‘grab-it-all’ attitude we exhibit on a daily basis. If you took time to reflect on the fact that life is not at the finished stage yet, you would realise you do not need to be evil in anyway. If you realised that the finished place is where every single person is lovely, sweetest and most beautiful, you would consciously strive to ensure your thoughts, words and actions kinder, honest and lovely. Your worldview would be heavenly.
Making the year a prosperous one is not as difficult as many of us imagine. In actuality, it is a call for us to live as ordinarily as we do when we are by ourselves. It is time for us to be honest with our thoughts and our actions. We know when we are by ourselves, we are confident of ourselves, so much so that we do not impress ourselves, instead, we undertake all our tasks with simplicity, nothing fancy, and nothing extraordinary. But more importantly, because we desire the best for ourselves, we are kinder to ourselves and a little tolerate of our flaws. We must therefore make “every effort to supplement our faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with fraternal affection, and fraternal affection with love.”
We will have to hunger to make the year prosperous. We must excited about it like we are about adventures. It would generate an energy on its own and the would inspire us to prepare ourselves – mind, spirit and body for whatever challenges the year would throw at us. We can never tell when we will be called to let our ordinariness shape the moment, and so let us must make all efforts to modify our attitudes for the better. That way, our efforts would enlarge the pie. It would make the moment so rich, it ripples throughout the universe to enrich every person in the way most appropriate.
No one can outline every wonderfulness that would ripple out of you when you start living divinely. But we can be confident that your presence would always make life better. It would bring about a reassurance of truth, goodness and beauty. It may not immediately change the routines of the world, but it would definitely improve the quality of life. You would be working towards a better future for a better you to live and enjoy in it. In a nutshell, you would be fulfilling that childhood dream when life was so sweet and all good, and no one fell sick or was poor, because we were all honest, and good and sweet to each other.
Have a prosperous year…
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Kodwo Brumpon is an author, a life coach and a philanthropist who inspires individuals, groups and organisations to think and feel that which is true, by helping them to positively respond to that which is beautiful is, whilst nudging them to let goodness govern their actions.
Comments, suggestions and requests should be sent to him at [email protected]
