Dear Family and Friends

Happy New Years everyone!


There is something about the Holiday Season that lends itself to reflection and introspection. Maybe it is the focus on family or tradition; maybe it is the fact that during this time we tend to look on things with a more compassionate gaze; or it could be all of the wonderful sites, scenes and smells of the season that arouse long forgotten memories. Often, for me, reflection and introspection comes in the form of a word. I have a unique relationship with words; at a particular time, place and situation a word may trigger a thought or image. In this vein, I have been thinking a lot about the word regret for awhile.

Funny thing regret, it is the manifestation lf all the things we quite haven’t let go of, or forgive ourselves for. I woke up on my birthday with the thought of; I am 36, yet a feel so young. I thought about friends who have been married for over a decade, parents of tweeners and some teens; those who haven’t been so lucky but have weathered the storm and those who didn’t and failed to find peace on this earth. In that moment, in my heart I felt gratitude but also a tinge of regret.

I regretted all the times I took things for granted in my life, not realizing how blessed and talented I really was. I regretted not cherishing the laughter and conversation shared with others, especially family and friends more than I did. I regretted not telling those same individuals how much they meant to me or better yet sharing a compliment. I regretted being to prideful and not letting others in when I felt inferior, overwhelmed or in over my head. This life, after all, is a shared experience. I regretted all the times in my life when I have wasted the resources and opportunities given me. Most of all though, I regretted making my life too often about what I wanted and how I felt and not about others, robbing myself of a broader influence due to being so doggedly focused on one possibility.

The funny thing is that I felt such a peace as I reflected on my regrets and the phrase cried out to me, “I’m still here with a smile on my face and laughter in my heart!” It is so easy to check out of life put it on “auto pilot” while we slowly atrophy socially and emotionally. It is as if this life is only about the harrowing and not about the growth. Repentance is when the struggling bud busts through the topsoil to behold the radiance and warmth of the sun. It is that radiance and warmth of the sun that I cherish as regret falls away. Regret allowed to stay too long becomes a cancer that leads to debilitating despair. As it decays by the effects of the sun the nourishment it provides in the form of experience leads to a perfect brightness of hope in which seeds long ago planted reach their eternal fruition.


I hope all of you are well and living lives of inspiration. I admire each of you very much in a myriad of ways. Your character and devotion instill greater hope and mercy.

Love,

Steve