I hope everyone has had a great year for I have experienced what some may call a 'rite of passage' - passage into adulthood, thrown into the deep end and I have finally started to wade myself back to the surface. Slowly.
I have decided to once and for all clean my room. I guess the act itself may be akin to some form of detox or purification. A checkpoint on my journey where I don't have to start from the beginning of the game and can still come back to this point whenever I feel down and desperate. I have decided to throw away (recycle) things from high school and uni, so I would say I am ridding myself from things I have accumulated over the past 13 years. One of my good friends is cleaning her room, too and I do hope she will feel uplifted and cleansed when she finishes. I might check up on her tonight...
So 2010 has been a year of ends and lots of beginnings. 2010 has brought me a lot of 'first times' again and I do feel refreshed and motivated to stare at 2011 and most importantly, the near future, and say, 'Bring it on!'.
I have found a poem in my room, scrunched up and crinkled, but peacefully sitting on my shelf, as if waiting for the right time to come out to enlighten me with its wisdom once again. I remember when I first read it, I felt it was a nice piece of writing and nothing more, shelved it and did not think of it again. Until now. I read it out loud to myself and felt it had touched a little part of my heart that I could not have done so in any other way.
I hope you will find this as beautiful as I did.
Happy new year.
~~
Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble, it's a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself.
Especially do not feign affection.
Neither by cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the Universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams; it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.
- Max Ehrmann (1927)
