Give Up On a "Happy" New Year. Go For Something Better.

I’ve been getting my butt kicked since mid-November when I experienced the kind of loss that made me nauseous with a frantic, clawing desire to be anywhere but in my own experience. Even though I knew it was coming, it was the kind of loss that once I accepted that it was real, it turned me inside out and my life upside down. 

It has shifted entirely the shape, appearance and feel of the threshold that leads into the new year. Which is, at once, both awful and exciting.

In that, I’ve had on the brain these last few weeks one of my favorite quotes from the hallowed JC. 

Joseph Campbell, that is. 

“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”

And over and over and over again for those of us fiercely committed to planning.

I have a lot of plans for this new year. Big and exciting ones related to my business. Quiet and ordinary ones related to my personal life…

But at this point I can’t help but already hold them with a lot of space and humility and humor as I peer in the direction of the not-yet-opened doorway to the new year and wonder what the hell is truly waiting for me. Certainly more and different things than what I have planned.

In recent days I’ve reworked JC’s quote in my head to read, “We must be willing to let go of the life we thought would make us happy so as to have the life that affords us true meaning.”

Which, I’m recognizing, is shockingly different. 

I’m amazed at how distracted I can get by shiny-happy while missing what actually brings me the contentment of embodied purpose, passion and truth.

So instead of wishing you a happy new year, I wish you a meaningful new year. 

I wish you a new year bigger than your carefully crafted plans. 

I wish you the inner and outer tools and resources you need to flourish, as messy and unconventional as that may look.

I wish you all the aliveness that comes from welcoming Uncertainty into the fold of your closest relationships.

Want more articles like this in your inbox from me? Sign up for my newsletter.