Reflecting on this past year, I’ve gained a lot and lost a lot.  I think we all have and the end of the year lets us capsulize it into a memento; a token of a bygone era.    For some of us, we never reflect on the past, and for others, all we do is live in the past.  Past decisions, regrets, mistakes, victories, triumphs, and defeats.  For those that live in the past, they want to dwell in the memories of something intangible, while those who can’t face their past dwell on trying to suppress a memory that has become intangible.  And yet for both, they remain stuck, like an insect imbued into the essence of amber, becoming a relic for those to find later.  We so rarely have the tools to process our own emotions, and we have even fewer to help others process theirs, and as such, we continue on as a society that simply accepts this as a truth.

I believe things are going to change, but it has to start with the realization that we do need instructions on how to be a human being.  We have become factories unto ourselves, swallowing whole what is spoon-fed to us and spitting it back out to those who come after us.  We leave no footprints behind and expect them to follow.  We have to realize that the rules we live by are malleable and can be changed if we so chose to.  Agitation for change comes not in agreement, but divergence.  Divergence and disagreement is what will lead to a new way of thinking and possibly a new way of doing things.  For if we keep agreeing with how things are, things will keep on keeping.  Each new year allows for us to see farther than we did the last year, but the most important thing I have learned is that the top can only progress as much as they let those at the bottom do.  If we don’t take care of each other, we will forever be trapped by the cycle of greed, and it will be greed that will be our downfall.