A New Year

A New Year is born. We look back on the old year and think of all that we have witnessed and seen and survived. Tsunamis, nuclear meltdowns, financial meltdowns, environmental disasters, Arab spring, etc. 2011 was a very full year. And as we move into 2012 with the Mayan calendar looming over us, I wonder what this year will bring. Will the world end on December 21 2012? Or will the Mayan Calendar just flip over another page, start a new calendar, like we do every year?

One thing this does do is make us look at our lives and wonder... if we do have only one year left to live - less than one year actually - what would we do in that year? There is a danger in that thinking - for we could decide that we want to go out with a bang and use up all of our resources, spend all of our money, eat all of our food, waste the environmental resources that we have left. It's like the patient who receives a cancer diagnosis that she has less than a year to live, and who decides to live it fully, spending all that she has - selling her house, traveling, enjoying and then... discovering that it was a diagnosis made in error. She doesn't just have a year left to live! Now what.

So, looking at this year as it were our last doesn't necessarily mean squandering our physical resources.. but it could mean something else. It could mean altering our attitude towards life and towards others. Perhaps we could spend our love extravagantly, be generous with our time, connect with others, contribute to others. Because the world might not end on December 21, 2012. Maybe, in fact, we need to alter the way we have been living our lives, the way we have been spending as if there is not tomorrow. Maybe December 21, 2012 represents a moment where we can make a choice as a species as to which sort of a world we want to create. All sorts of possibilities abound and we have the power to create that... or not.