Start Over
We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us. - Joseph Campbell
We love a new year. And not just because of the outrageous parties, the glitter, champagne and black dresses. Not just the countdown and the kisses at midnight. Not even the day off, with parades, friends, and football.
Not that we don't love all those things. But mostly we love it because it's the one giant reset button that comes with our calendars every year. An excuse, not just to reuse or recycle, but to reboot. To start over. Whatever that means to you.
You could, if you wanted, flush everything that came before. Maybe your relationship reached the end of its natural life. Or it's the job, the tired car, yesterday's shoes, the outgrown apartment, or even your town that you need to kick to the curb.
For most of us, it's probably a little less dramatic. It could be just one or two little things. Like this painting I did last year. I love most of it, but there’s this one part. Despite the need for all art to find its finishing place, I've got to fix this one. And a new year gives me permission to take it down from the wall and do that.
Whether it's big or small, can't we do this on any given day of the year, reboot our lives? Of course. Will we? Likely not. But January 01 stands before us on the horizon as the poster-child for the perennial possibility of second, third, and twenty-seventh chances.
Though, that's not the whole story. Part of us doesn't really want to start over. As much as we talk tough. Because, well, we've kind of grown attached to our dysfunction. We've been living our stories of why certain things don't work for us since before we can remember, and truthfully, we're just too damn lazy to tear up the manuscript and start over.
Take it from a writer, sometimes you've got to burn those pages. As enmeshed as you are with the story, the characters, and the script; as badly as you want to breathe life back into that anemic storyline, sometimes you've just got to take Faulkner's advice and kill your darlings. No matter how many re-writes you've been through trying to suture the wounds.
When I wrote the first draft of the novel, Waking Up at Rembrandt's, it was about twice as long and had twice as many storylines. Then I put it aside for a little while. When I picked it up to read it with fresh eyes, I kind of hated it. But, like the worn-out stories we live for too long, I was reluctant to let it go.
One morning, pre-dawn, I sat down to write without any goal in mind. In that space, a new voice started flooding the pages. I couldn't channel the words fast enough. And some of them were lost to the ether. But it was the push I needed to pick up the novel again. And to tear it to shreds. The result was a new narrator, a new point of view, and a piece of art that was distilled down to its essence, with half as many characters and storylines. And this time, I didn't want to throw it away when I was done.
But it never would've happened if I hadn't been willing to start over. We've all got to let go of yesterday, in order to live today. We hear this, and we know it's true. And it is still harder than hard to actually do it.
Tomorrow, we say. We have time; we lie to ourselves. Because no one has time. Time cannot be had. All we really have is right now. And the giant red reset button that's available for the pushing every day of the year, no matter what the calendar tells us.
Whatever it is that isn't working in your life, change it. As has been said and said and said, this isn't a dress rehearsal. The remarkable thing is that we hear this, and we tell ourselves we understand it, yet we go right back to living the same story. We go right back to complaining about the same things. We go right back to the novel written in the wrong voice, the painting that just doesn't work, the same tired arguments with ourselves and others.
When what we need to do is to just stop. Press the button. Start over. No matter what you might think now. No matter what others may trick you into believing. Life is short. Quite unbelievably short, really. You, me, and everyone we know will wake up one day and be really pissed at our current selves for not hitting that button. And for not hitting it more often. Go ahead. No matter what the calendar says, hit that button.
Start Over
Good article! So true and a great reminder.
way on track message for today, my friend.