Create the year we want

“The mind is its own place and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven…” (Milton)

On December 30, at the end of the last yoga session that I taught for 2022, all of the participants voiced the sentiment that 2023 will be a great year.

The average person hopes for a better year with every turn of the annual calendar.

Is there anyone who actively wishes for an upcoming timeframe to be "worse" than its predecessor?

And if a year is "better" or "worse," what makes it so? Is it the events that take place in that year or our perspective of them?

There is a saying in Nichiren Buddhism: “Winter always turns to spring.”

This is akin to 17th century English theologian Thomas Fuller’s “It is always darkest just before the day dawneth.”

Putting global warming, unexpected weather patterns and never-before-seen celestial events aside, it is true that night always turns to day and winter always turns to spring. After the dark, cold and dead of winter (symbolic of life’s challenging times), there is spring, where light, new leaves and colourful flower buds burst into existence (symbolic of life flourishing with new vigour, beauty and potential).

There is a Tobagonian youth (about 18 years old) who helps a friend work his agricultural land on mornings. On the last day of 2022 I asked him what he predicts for 2023. Without skipping a beat, he said; “Prosperity and elevation. Nothing but blessings.”

I loved his answer, which he expressed with such simple conviction, believing it to be true, despite any seemingly adverse external circumstances or appearances.

I also felt what he said to be true. Simply wishing that kind of prophecy or affirmation to be true...does it mean that it will be? There also needs to be positive action on our part.

In contrast, there are those who will look to this new year with dread – not wanting the worst, but expecting it. They will see 2023 as a time in which the media will document numbers of murders (along with a host of other crimes), inciting and compounding the widespread belief that there is no return from the abyss of horror into which TT is sinking.

The repeated problems we face as a nation are like barriers which no current external source or force seems able to penetrate.

On January 1, while driving on a back street where cars were double-parked, I got "stuck" behind two cars that had come head-to-head. There were no vehicles behind one of the cars; the driver could have reversed. Instead, as minutes passed, both cars remained stationary, the resolute obstinacy of their drivers evident.

Ordinarily I might have blared my horn or would have considered getting out and trying to talk some sense into the one who could have reversed easily.

Instead, I was surprisingly unruffled, accepting that this is their choice...but sitting there getting frustrated as a result of their stubborn inaction did not have to be mine. Fortunately there was a space in which I could turn, so I did, freely and calmly going my way to take another route. The cars behind me followed the cue.

How long did those two drivers sit there? Who eventually moved and why? Was that movement preceded by a peaceful or hostile exchange?

Those of us who left will never know. The capacity to accept and move on, without becoming mired in the swamps of danger or difficulty created around us is useful in today’s society.

Acceptance is defined in the English Oxford Dictionary as “the willingness to tolerate a difficult situation.” Note: "Tolerance" is one of TT’s national watchwords. "Acceptance" is also a useful one to embrace.

Some may consider acceptance to be a passive undertaking, a state of giving up, but it is not. I think "acceptance" is an active word – first, recognising and acknowledging that something is "difficult" or problematic – then, instead of pushing against the obstacle and going nowhere (as per the two drivers), allow the time and space to see or create "another way" – or allow one to present itself independent of previously generated efforts.

Solutions dependent on external earthly sources are not always forthcoming in our desired timing, if at all. To stress over unresolved problematic issues and perpetuate them in our mental space can be counterproductive.

There is always another route, and it is ours to choose.