On Being Resolute From January 2017

Happy 2017 Sam! The coming of a new year can bring about all sorts of feelings depending on where you feel you are in life. I hope you are always able to find the ending of one year and the start of a new one to be exciting, or at least find it hopeful. I hope you are able to look back on the previous year with insight on where you went right, where you went wrong, and where what you learned from it all is going to take you.  Well, at least where you want it to take you.

For some reason New Years Eve was something I always rather looked forward to or at least felt was a positive/fun thing. I think it provided me more with hope for the new year as I mentioned above. I felt like no matter what had happened in the previous year, I could take what I learned from it and apply it going forward and get to where I wanted to be, or at least get further along on my way. It didn't always happen of course, getting further to where I wanted to be.  Hell, some years I even lost some ground. Those years are hard to recover from sometimes but that's okay - having challenges in life actually turns out to be beneficial for a whole bunch of reasons.  Challenges you face and how you overcome them that teach you more than sailing through something ever could.  You learn about the world around you, how it works, how it doesn't, you learn about yourself, what you're capable of, what you're not, and you learn about others, what they're capable of, and (most people unfortunately learn this the hard way), what others are not capable of. I hope that when you have to experience that sort of situation, that you don't carry your disappointment with you for very long.  It does you no favors to hold on to negativity like that even though sometimes it feels easier to hide behind being angry and upset.  Dusting yourself off and putting yourself out there again, this time hopefully a little wiser from what you learned but still just as hopeful in others - takes a lot of inner strength to be able to do but I promise you its the better of the two paths.

Depending on when you get around to reading this, you might agree fully, maybe having seen me lead by example.  Or you possibly could think I'm full of crap not practicing what I appear to be preaching.  To some degree that last part is true.  Sometimes I struggle with letting go of things that have negatively impacted me for whatever reason. But especially since you and your sister came along I've been much more cognizant of that and constantly trying to gain that strength to lead by example, to model what I think is the most beneficial way to be. Even though I fail at it sometimes, I am resolute in the fact that I will always get back up and try again.  I hope nothing but the same for you.  I love you baby boy - Happy New Years!