I'm moving!

Well, I'm moving digitally.

Beats Two and Four will be inactive after this post (big difference, I know).
My new blog is The Timshel Project. I'm pretty excited about it because it is where this blog was headed, but without all the baggage. Some of these post will reappear in the new blog because I really like them. If there were any you liked and would like to discuss with a larger audience, feel free to let me know and I'll repost them.
Thank you all so much for following me on this broken path of blog. Go to The Timshel Project. I hope that you will support it and invite your friends to follow it too.

Vaya con Dios
'Pole

I Was a High School Band Nerd

If you go to most news sites this week, or look at the blogs on LinkedIn, you will find many articles on "How to get organized for the new year," or "How to keep your resolutions"or "The 7 secrets of success for this new year (or 4 or 7 or 13 depending on how creative the writer was)," along with other diet and exercise plans.

At the beginning of the year we make our resolutions based on what has or hasn't worked for us and others in the past. We look to successful businessmen and women for how to arrange our lives so that we too may one day own a company like Virgin Airlines. As holiday photos go up on Facebook, we notice how our faces look rounder than they did last year, and commit to more exercise and eating right. We look to the past to inform our future. I don't think there is anything wrong with that. It doesn't make you unoriginal or foolish. We get in trouble when we think that we are doing something completely new that has never been done before. Either it has and we look arrogant, or it has been tried before, failed miserably, you will look ridiculous for attempting it a second time the same way.

So this week, looking at the year to come, I think back to the past.

Like the overwhelming majority of people, I want to be happy. So I look back to the happy, fulfilled time to inform my direction.

In high school, I did nothing but band. I'm not a great musician. I watch performers on stage and wish I were them, but I remember all the joy of playing music. I kept doing band in college with the Redcoats. What was it about band that kept me involved? It wasn't a career, it was a time-consuming hobby that I didn't excel at or take advantage of to advance myself.

I liked the way music inspired me.
I liked the identity of tradition that a uniform established.

I liked that a bunch of different people came together and made something beautiful.

I liked that I was a part of something that other people enjoyed.

This year:
I want to find inspiration
I want my identity to be as strong as tradition
I want a bunch of different people to come together and make something beautiful
And, I want to be part of it.

Lucky number '13

Every January 1st, most people take stock of their lives from the past year. We look back upon what we accomplished and failed, our estimations of where we would be one year from this moment. And so, the  year begins with bleary eyes, red from a late party the night before. Eyes that are either full of hope for the coming year, or full of fear from the magnitude of it all.

I have a unique situation. My birthday falls a week-and-a-half after the new year, and so I have a week-and-a-half that separates two new years. In the past, these eleven days have served a variety of purposes. Sometimes, this time is a grace period. No resolutions were formed on New Year's Day and now I have some time to think about it. In other years, this time can serve as a mulligan. In eleven short days I fall of the resolution wagon and get a do over (which never sticks) on my birthday.

This year, the familiar resolutions are here: lose weight, read more, pray more. But this year, my aim is to get to December 31st 2013 and look back on the previous 365 days and be content with my progress or lack thereof. I can't replace my ambition or desire to improve, but I can control my response to the outcome. To me, a content life is a strong, resilient life. The lows are not measured by the highs, but that my response to the lows is determination and a faith that I will be ok.

2013 can be a great year. I'm sure there will be sorrow along the way, but who knows what we will discover in science, what will be created in the arts, what a child will say next, what example an elder will set. Oh yes, 2013 is a year of endless possibility. You and I will blaze the path for the year. Those endless possibilities will become more finite and detailed as we move from day to day, week to week, and month to month. So, with each passing moment we lose the endlessness, but gain perspective (like backing away from a mosaic).

With a content life, I will be able to risk more of myself, because I am risking less. The chances I take can be bigger because the risk to my self-image is low. Contentment begets a strange combination of confidence and humility. These juxtaposed ideas ensure the lows are leveled out and the highs are reachable.

So for the next week-and-a-half, think of me as I struggle with this idea of contentment and the surety it brings to act, and my thoughts will be for you and your daily strivings.

If I live the life I'm given, I won't be scared to die. -The Avett Brothers.