The 2010s could be a decade you cherished or a decade you loathed for so many different reasons. It was a decade of change, of loss, of growth. It was a decade of civil unrest - in Thailand and Hong Kong, of nationalism and tragedies - in Haiti, Chile, New Zealand and twin tragedies with Malaysia Airlines. In 2010 Donald Trump was a gameshow host. Giving a DVD or CD as a gift was common place. Instagram was in its infancy. Brexit didn't exist. The world will never be the same again.
"Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up but a comedy in long-shot," so said Charlie Chaplin.
I will confess that the decade had been bittersweet for me. But slowly, on a personal level, it has gotten better - or at least less terrible. I did quite a lot of thinking, some praying, and, in time, a good deal of laughing.
What I've learned from my personal "decade review" is that there are years that ask questions and then there are years that answer them. I never know what a year might hold.
We live in a world where everyone wants answers, but we never want to wrestle with the questions. Instant gratification - our culture - teaches us to cave in to impatience and to take the easy way out instead of patiently searching the deeper meaning. We don't know what the universe has in store for us. So whatever questions, whatever challenges are thrown at us in a given year, we've got to roll with them.
What these years of questions really do is to test me. One of the keys to sorting through the questions is to not let them consume me. Throughout those uncertain years, I was still finding success, and making significant contributions. I wasn't just sitting around vexed and perplexed.
You have to find your own ways of answering the questions, whatever they happen to be. If you're diagnosed with a major illness, that's life asking you, "now, how are you going to deal with this?" If you lose your job, the question is, "Now, what's your next move?" These questions are testing your faith, testing your perseverance, testing your principles, testing your soul.
When people say," Man, I can't wait for this year to be over," what they're really saying is, "it's been a year full of unanswered questions."
We can't be afraid of having question years. Anyone who's successful will tell you that they learn more from failures than from successes. The years that ask questions are the years that end up leading to growth. When you embrace those trying years, as with any other test, there are answers waiting for you on the other side.
Look, I'm going to be honest here. Even as I say all of this, we both know that when disaster strikes, it's challenging to stay levelheaded. Our problems are still real, they still hurt.
It's up to us to make the choice to be grateful even when things aren't going well. Happiness, as they say, is not about getting what we want; it's about appreciating what we have.
"Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up but a comedy in long-shot," so said Charlie Chaplin.
I will confess that the decade had been bittersweet for me. But slowly, on a personal level, it has gotten better - or at least less terrible. I did quite a lot of thinking, some praying, and, in time, a good deal of laughing.
What I've learned from my personal "decade review" is that there are years that ask questions and then there are years that answer them. I never know what a year might hold.
We live in a world where everyone wants answers, but we never want to wrestle with the questions. Instant gratification - our culture - teaches us to cave in to impatience and to take the easy way out instead of patiently searching the deeper meaning. We don't know what the universe has in store for us. So whatever questions, whatever challenges are thrown at us in a given year, we've got to roll with them.
What these years of questions really do is to test me. One of the keys to sorting through the questions is to not let them consume me. Throughout those uncertain years, I was still finding success, and making significant contributions. I wasn't just sitting around vexed and perplexed.
You have to find your own ways of answering the questions, whatever they happen to be. If you're diagnosed with a major illness, that's life asking you, "now, how are you going to deal with this?" If you lose your job, the question is, "Now, what's your next move?" These questions are testing your faith, testing your perseverance, testing your principles, testing your soul.
When people say," Man, I can't wait for this year to be over," what they're really saying is, "it's been a year full of unanswered questions."
We can't be afraid of having question years. Anyone who's successful will tell you that they learn more from failures than from successes. The years that ask questions are the years that end up leading to growth. When you embrace those trying years, as with any other test, there are answers waiting for you on the other side.
Look, I'm going to be honest here. Even as I say all of this, we both know that when disaster strikes, it's challenging to stay levelheaded. Our problems are still real, they still hurt.
It's up to us to make the choice to be grateful even when things aren't going well. Happiness, as they say, is not about getting what we want; it's about appreciating what we have.
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