As a new year begins

The time that passes between the end of one calendar year and the beginning of the next can offer meaningful opportunities to reflect, refresh, and rest.  For many, this can be a time to share joy, experience calm, and find peace – and it can bring feelings of great contentment.  There may be a strong sense of a fresh start that awaits – rich with potential to live the life you hope to live.  

However, for others, this may be a time of sadness, regret, loss, or disappointment.  Reflecting on experiences in the months that passed can cause feelings of uneasiness or even a sense of being “out of time” – depending on how things might have gone.  There may even be painful reminders of what might not have happened, or of people who are no longer a part of our lives or connected to our day-to-day experiences.

My internal conflict

For many years, I found myself feeling torn between these two extremes – caught up in the desire to move forward while fighting the tendency to be pulled back into a space of melancholy or sorrow.  I’d either be overly eager to put a given year behind me – or frantically overly optimistic to start a new one – but it was almost always something that occurred without doing the necessary work to make that transition in a more grounded, harmonious way.  

I marched forward without any kind of self-check process or genuine reflection.  

I didn’t take actions that would have allowed me a sense of confidence in my purpose.  I didn’t do what I should have done to ensure that I could find peace with my past decisions and make my future days more joyful or more complete.  I was often too focused on the movement of the clock or turning of the calendar page, and not focused enough on how I could create a rewarding life for myself – one in which I was facing what needed to be faced but also doing so while offering myself opportunities for flourishing.

Stoic practice, a tool for transition

Since beginning a practice of reading and studying Stoicism, I’m finally finding this time of transition to be one of greater contemplation, acceptance, and thoughtfulness.  Rather than focus on the individual components of my experiences as this year winds down and the new one begins, I choose to see them as connected to the larger theme of cultivating virtue.  I still think about what the year passing held – and what the year ahead might offer – but I do so with a simplified sense of ordering my actions in ways that are more in accordance with nature.

Not obsessing about things we don’t control

I still feel all of my feelings – joy, indifference, disappointment – but now that I am no longer obsessed with the things I could not control in the months that passed, or mistakes made, or disagreeable exchanges with others, the end of the year feels different to me.  Now that I am no longer spending time worrying about what awaits, or attempting to drill down on the details involved in proclaiming grandiose resolutions and goals for the new year, I am more at peace and happier than I’ve ever been.

Moving towards a delightful life

Life has a truly delightful order to it now – and while I am definitely not a passive participant in my own life, and I still find myself in the midst of plenty of disappointments and celebratory moments, I don’t feel the anxieties I once felt at this time of year.  I’m able to thoughtfully consider the choices I can make, within my own control, to pursue acts of courage, justice, wisdom, and temperance.  Perhaps most importantly as a reformed / recovering control-obsessive person, I can see these choices as part of a larger, ordered, natural plan. 
 
Being in harmony is an ongoing journey

I can still take significant actions to build my life, but I am able to do so without the stresses and worries that once plagued my feelings around this time of transition – and that brings me immeasurable joy.  It’s just as the quote from Marcus Aurelius reminds us, sometimes the best path we can take is to not only focus on living the virtues – but also to actively refuse to consider anything else.  After all, it’s not just what we choose, but what we choose not to choose that provides us with opportunities to live “in harmony with what is really good.”  

Andi Sciacca is based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she is an Associate Professor II of Critical Studies at The Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD). She is also engaged in several nonprofit leadership roles – including serving as a member of the Modern Stoicism Steering Committee.

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