Why We Should All Take A Day To Reflect On 2013

Here’s to 2013! Premature? Perhaps. That said, how has 2013 been for you?

Has it been a year of milestones? A new job? A marriage? A child? A new start in a new city? A sudden heartbreak? A death of a loved one? An unexpected deviation from the path on which you saw your life?

Take a day in the middle of the craziness of the holidays and just reflect on exactly how far you’ve come and how much you’ve grown.

Look back over the year, perhaps with the often-dangerous assistance of social media, and think about all the moments when life sucked—but you survived. Sure, this might be a bi-weekly drunken habit on Friday or Saturday nights, but tell this story about a new life in a different way. Stop the obsession, just for one night. And laugh at it. Smile. Cry. Reflect on how it has shaped who you are today. Seek a new perspective. It’s not a revelation nor a solution—but rather a new perspective to take with you.

While some moments may still really hurt, that hurt is proof that you survived. It’s proof that life has an arbitrary way of punching you in the gut and toying with you while you’re down, but it also brings along surprises that makes the sucker punches less painful. But it’s also acknowledging everyone has their big moments in life that, when reflected upon later, seem smaller moments teaching larger lessons.

The heartbreak of separating from someone you love, someone you saw yourself having a future with. The hurt of getting a fateful phone call informing you that death claimed someone so dear to you. The disappointment of losing a job or unsuccessfully searching for months with no results. What’s your moment that defines an unexpected jolt from what you were expecting?

Take a day somewhere between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve, when feelings really begin to feel forced, and acknowledge your raw emotions for what they are, both good and bad. Make a toast to your survival.

It’s feeling the crisp burn of winter winds on your checks and feeling alive. It’s being strong when you want to crumble to the ground. It’s knowing that the past is what it is, but that it doesn’t solidify your future, either. Sure, you’re going to carry your memories with you, but today, if even just today, you can know that the future is really going to work out.

Maybe it’s just a day to be selfish. But is that so bad? Being selfish with your emotions, your heart and your future, if just for one day you saw you as you?

It’s heartbreak.

It’s being terrified.

It’s losing your house in a fire.

It’s making a move everyone said wasn’t logical.

It’s your life.

But it’s seeing a newborn baby.

It’s getting a callback or final interview.

It’s admitting the truth after years of keeping calm.

It’s a mindset.

You will survive.

The holidays have a knack for messing with emotions—I know they mess with mine—and we get caught up in little things. The peppermint mocha. The porcelain Santas. The hope for snow. Trying to wrap the perfect present. Showing someone you love them while being too afraid to say it.

Is 2013 the year to take that leap? Or is 2014 the new opportunity to make that change? Either way, the opportunity is here for you. Take it.

What’s the worst that could happen?