“Any years behind us are already in the hands of death.”

Seneca

This week, I’ve been reading Breakfast with Seneca by David Fideler. It seemed appropriate that I read that quote above this morning as we are about to put 2022 to rest.

2022 hasn’t been a bad year, but it hasn’t been great either. The death of a friend just a few days in to the year put a damper on things quickly and made me start to doubt everything I was doing. Suddenly, my friend had no years in the future; his whole life was in the hands of death.

As I look back, I see how that colored my whole year. Including nearly grinding it to a halt for me.

I am ready to release 2022 and I hope that as we are past the terrible two’s, we can start to emerge from the last few years which have scathed this planet. I hope that humanity can now recover with a new sense of purpose and commitment not only to ourselves, but each other and the planet as a whole. Haven’t we seen enough death, destruction, and mayhem since— well, I was going to say the end of 2019, but honestly nothing has ever been the same since September 2001. or maybe since World Wars I and II – those are just before my time, so it’s hard to say. For my lifetime, it’s 2001, though I do feel like so far the 2020’s have been far more damaging.

As David Fideler says in his book, not much about human nature has really changed since the time of Seneca in Ancient Rome. It really hasn’t.

I look forward to continuing the book in 2023 as well as the results of my internal journeys undertaken (usually unwillingly) in 2022.

Now, let’s party for 2023.

Cheers and Happy New Year!