Wending Along

I am not complaining that we are pushing the end of January. January is a hard month, getting back into the thick of things after a holiday, having to do all those tedious year-end chores, not to mention having to cope with the unfolding winter weather. Besides I always enjoy the closing of one event and the commencement of another. I need every available platform from which to launch a fresh start. Unless one is Catholic, there is a need to secure new venues for purging. The calendar is as good as anything for that.

Like most people I haven’t fulfilled any of the resolutions I made for the New Year. The change of the month doesn’t offer the same exhilaration as the change of the year, but it is nonetheless another opportunity to take stock and rally. Doing something mid-month just doesn’t present the same opening.

One might reasonably enquire what it is that requires emendation in one’s life. There may even be people who believe they have nothing to change. Good for them is all I can say! For my part, however, I haven’t the same conviction in my wholesomeness. Anything which obstructs my production is to me an annoyance. Living out a fruitful profession and a meaningful personal life requires attention, diligence and plain hard work. This objective can become clouded and disturbed by bad habits above which only the strongest can rise. For most of us, the course is best left unfettered by such commotion and conflict.

How does one become derailed in these lofty pursuits? In a word, it is passion. Passion is the insidious feature of an otherwise spotless existence. The roots of passion grow deep within us and it is no mean task to surmount the fervour prompted, apart from satisfaction of the passion. Once satisfied, it is easy to take the high road, but it is only a matter of time before the wolves along the way become evident once again. We are encouraged in our indulgence of passions by such adages as “Life is short”, “We’re here for a good time, not a long time”, etc. Those sayings are most resonant when on the other side of the fence, looking in. They are in fact replete with mendacity and malicious temptation. It is utterly specious to suggest that life doesn’t already provide its rewards without the necessity of supplanting it with the objects of one’s passions.

Everything good in nature requires time. Regrettably many of us are anxious to push things along at a far greater rate than is natural. This acceleration of events destroys the chance to absorb the refinements of life which are distributed in their own sweet time.