New Beginnings vs. More of the Same

"We don't know what we don't know until we know that we don't know it." - Richard Fisher

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The beginning of each new year is filled with hope and the promise of possibility. We make the decision to continue with the "status quo" or reflect upon the previous year and opt for change. Regardless of our approach to a new year and, this year, to a new decade, change will happen, even if we are satisfied with how our lives are unfolding.

I'm looking at the past year with curiosity, appreciation, and a willingness to carry forward lessons learned into the new year. For example, I learned this year how dependent I have become on technology such as my cell phone and computer. Within a few days of each other, my cell phone was lost and my computer crashed. I realized that I am totally dependent on my telephone for phone numbers and on my computer for email addresses. I had even entered my addresses master list in a document on my computer.

I knew that my computer should be backed up but did not really know how to do that. I thought my telephone was backed up through my service provider - wrong! Now that I have a "Smart Phone", it is supposed to be backed up on my computer (which, by the way, had just crashed!) Whatever happened to those old fashioned, hand written address books?

I purchased an external hard drive and have backed up my computer. It was not difficult nor excessively time consuming. I have backed up my smart phone on my computer, but still have not learned how to check the contents of the backup. It's a work in progress! I am learning, however, that backups must be created, a huge lesson learned in 2009!

What will the new year and decade hold? More lessons and change can be guaranteed. For any of us who have tried to travel back into the past to catch a glimpse of some meaningful moment, special event, or magical place, the lesson is invariably received that you can't go back. Somehow things are not the same. Perhaps the lesson is not so much that you can't go back. Maybe we are supposed to learn to enjoy each moment as it occurs.

Here's to a new year and a new decade!!!