Cheers!

“And here’s a hand my trusty friend

And gie’s a hand o’thine

We’ll tak’ a cup o’kindness yet....

...for auld lang syne....”

It is a time for closing the books on the past 12 months and, without prejudice against oneself, toast to yet another shot, another chance, another face-to-face at life. We excelled in the past year — or we failed miserably. We rode it out, stumbled, or surfed atop the highest waves. We barely survived — or merely existed — or actually lived. We had plans and missed the target. We aimed for five and surprised ourselves with a 10. We end 2007 dark and thinking life’s a bitch. We end 2007 seeing light and believing the world is actually a better place to live in.

In all of it, we are alive still and able to hold up our hand and clink our glasses to the future knowing that even with hope and faith as our armor, it is we who are the authors of our lives and the creators of history.

To my friends this year I wrote of gratitude and dreams and wishes. Words are cheap and easy. But don’t most things great begin with an utterance of hope?

So here’s to Chesterton who once said, “The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul.”

So, then, here is to eternal youth — of the face and body as with the mind and spirit.

Here’s to prosperity — through business that promotes only the good and benefits the majority.

Here’s to friendship beyond work and business. To friendship among family. To friendship that is patient and enduring and keeps no record of wrongs.

Here’s to those who break away from the line to speak up, stand out and be the voice that pushes the world forward.

Here’s to men on the moon and cloning, yes — but more importantly — the cure for cancer, the potent alternative to oil and the formula against war, hunger and poverty. 

Here’s to the realization that money is indeed overrated — but that, as we admit it persists to matter, may there be lots of money to count and even more of it to give away.

Here’s to charity and generosity — the kind that is unannounced, compassionately dispensed, choosing no season, seen to completion and unending — the only kind that truly makes a difference to one or to many.

Here’s to kindness, to encouragement when most needed, hence, most appreciated.

To gratitude — that it may fill our hearts so that there is even less space for discontent.

To discontent — that we might have just enough to keep striving to maximize potential.

To potential — that it be a source of achievement and fulfillment rather than frustration and regret.

Here’s to freedom from the bondage of doubt and freedom to fly high with no fear.

Here’s to light and leadership that inspire — may it be among us, within us, defined, identified and chosen to chart our path towards good, even greatness.

Here’s to family, to children, to health, to peace and love and all else that essentially matter.

Here’s to failure and to knowing it is but one of millions of other words in the dictionary. That it is but another word for purpose, fuel, challenge.  Here’s to courage in endings and courage to, again, begin.

Here’s to us. For all that we are that we many times fail to see and love and nurture to full potential. To us who have lived through another year of making the most of what we know and how we know it, trying to make it work within our own small spaces. To us who love ourselves enough to realize we are special. And for the special there are no report cards with passing or failing marks — only, another chance.

Cheers!

(E-mail the author at korina_abs@yahoo.com)