One foot forward into 2025
"The most important step a person can take is always the next one."
So this is the New Year, a blank chapter of hopes, dreams, and possibility.
And, if you're like me, you've probably chalked up a mental list of all the ways you fell short last year.
Amidst all the hope and optimism of a clean slate, it's also easy to despair. To feel like you can't change. That you're trapped as the person you were yesterday and today.
Go ahead and feel that way. It's real. It's valid. Take a minute to let that frustration pour over you.
Then consider the following:
"A journey will have pain and failure. It is not only the steps forward the we must accept. It is the stumbles, the trials, the knowledge that we will fail, that we will hurt those around us. But if we stop, if we accept the person we are when we fall, the journey ends. That failure becomes our destination."
Written by Dalinar Kholin, a character in Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive, those words hold special meaning for me this time of year.
People aren't video game characters. We don't level up our stats and enjoy the permanent improvement. We experience ebbs and flows, highs and lows.
We age. We change. We improve and regress.
We kick ass and get our asses kicked in this life.
Each of us holds a one-way ticket to the grave, folks. The destination is set. The journey is all that's left to decide.
"To love the journey is to accept no such end. I have found through painful experiences that the most important step a person can take is always the next one. …If I must fall, I will rise each time a better man... The most important words a man can say are: I will do better."
One foot forward into 2025. Forget fancy resolutions. Forget your doubt and despair. Wherever we are, whatever our journey may be, get your eyes off the rearview mirror and take the next step.
We won't all be as skinny, strong, mentally stable, rich, or successful as we want by New Year's Eve 2025.
But one step at a time, we can all be better.