My life has seemed like a string of beginnings. I have experienced big beginnings and small ones. I can think of five times when my life took a significant change of direction because I made a big decision. It seems that these changes were large enough that I felt I was beginning a new life. And so it turned out to be true.
This morning I began a new year, and while it is truly a new beginning, it doesn’t seem that monumental. Just the same, I have expressed my intention to begin being more mindful about how I live out my dependency on my friends, my companions.
This morning I also began a new day as I chose to become awake. Then I began to roll to the right and place my feet on the floor. One decision after another, one beginning following the one before. Every step, I suppose, is a new beginning. Every step is a bold movement into uncertainty. It has an unpredictable outcome, and I move into that world of ambiguity.
I want every step, every movement to begin an open-ended adventure. The more mindful of what I am doing, the more I am aware that every step opens a vast array of possibilities. Each step is a new experience, a new lived moment.
So far, my life has been a succession of new lives on a large scale and on a small moment-to-moment scale. I have begun so many new lives that it almost seems like a continuity. But I know each passing moment is as fresh, new and unpredictable as the last. That is how I want to experience them.