Who doesn’t love a new book? Fresh pages, new plot, rich and developed characters that make you fall in love or want to scream in frustration and anger.
Many very wise people find New Year’s Day to be a purely arbitrary day. Nothing special and certainly no reason to rethink or revamp current situations. I’m just not that wise. I love the first day of the year, the first day of a month, the first day of the week, the first hour of the day, any excuse for a do-over.
I annotated and analyzed a scholarly journal article on the benefits of video gaming with a few of my more obsessed students. I needed to better understand why they chose to spend so much time and energy on something I don’t find a lot of inherent value in, and I also wanted to empower them to defend their leisure (and sometimes NOT leisure) time choices to others.
The article mentioned several benefits I suspected, but one AHA take away:
Video games teach the players that failure is not the end.
When you die, as one of my students told me, “it’s like you get a total fresh start, and nothing in the past ever happened.” I pressed him a bit, asking if it was a TOTAL fresh start, or if he had any positive or negative baggage to carry into his next life. “Well, now I know what to avoid if I don’t want to die that way again, so I guess I have experience and knowledge.”
Every new day is a doover, hell, every new minute has such potential.
2018 has been challenging and full of lessons and experiences. “New” and very very old homes, duplexes, moves, men, horrible men, breakups, horrible breakups, food, booze, and more food and booze. New jobs (two!), new friends, and millions of new pages and ideas consumed.
May 2019 find me using my lessons and experiences to maximum potential. May my “doover” be full of grace, compassion, laughter, healing, and health.
Light and Love,
BL
Big Laura 