Love Life

 As I have said in yesterday's post, I would like to share some new year's resolutions with you during the month of January which I would like to implement in my own life throughout the course of the year.

This year I would like to open up and love life.  In the very busy world we live in we have very little time for ourselves and even less time for other people.  At times we live our lives as if we are living on an island.  We are completely absorbed in our own lives.  We seldom reach out to others, and rarely allow new people into our inner circle.  People live years next door to each other, but never get to know their neighbours.  We simply have no time to make new friends.  As a society we have also become very suspicious about strangers, and we have cocooned ourselves into a net of safety.  The result is that we become more and more isolated and lonely.  While we are living together with our immediate families, surrounded by our spouses and children and maybe grandparents we are not really aware of all the lonely people we pass by on a daily basis, but once our children grow up and leave the house, or divorce or any form of separation happens, we start realizing that we miss close interaction with other people, and it is then that we discover that although we might know a great many people by their first names, we do not know them at all.  The closeness of friendship is non-existent.  Therefore I would like to reach out more to the people I pass by, I want to take time out of my busy schedule to spend a few minutes in the company of somebody I have promised to visit every time we walk past and exchange a hasty greeting.  Maybe this year we can go have that cup of tea at the old lady sitting alone at the back of the church, maybe invite the new couple who moved to our corner of the world and desperately miss their family and friends.  

The truth is that humans are pack animals and as such we need people, we need each other.  When we reach out to others and we open the doors of our lives to them we not only do something good for them, but in the process we also enrich our own lives, as we can learn something from everybody we meet.  Look around you, make a list of all the people you have passed by during the past year and have thought for a brief moment that you would like to invite them for coffee or lunch or pay them a visit.  It is your subconscious sending you a message, so maybe this is the year to listen to that voice and reach out and make a connection.  Come on, let us open up and spread the love.