Mentalechoes

Well this is it kids! The last hurrah of 2006 is nearly upon us (if you’re one of the lucky ones living in Europe – and even luckier to be living in Amsterdam), very soon it’s going to be champers flying and the beginning of a new cycle of hopes and dreams.

This is what I really love about New Years Eve; at midnight we reconcile the past, and look forward to something better in the months to come. But we don’t do it alone, we do it with everyone that we’re with, so our collective hopes and dreams carry us all on their shoulders, giving us that very special feeling of life being such a wonderful thing.

For me personally, it’s important to have a moment like this in my life. I like to be able to look back on a year and see my highs and lows, my acheivements and failures, and feel like it all meant something. Because New Years is all about the big picture; the whole forest and not just the trees; all of the last 365 days at once. As people we all get so wrapped up in our fast moving little lives, that a day seems to pass as quick as an eye blink, and a week like a speeding train. Before we know it a month has passed and we seem to invariably look back and say, ‘Jezuz… where did the time go’. New Year is like standing on top of the mountain of days, and seeing the valley of experiences below and you can take heart in how far you have come.

So to you all I wish you the most happiest of New Years Eve parties, and I wish you all a really fantastic 2007; may it be everything you can ever wish for, and lots lots more.

Padwanna!

You know it’s sometimes easy to forget that there was a life we had before the present day and that there were people in it that we shared ourselves with during that time. Everything that happens in the present, always casts a very big shadow on the past, to the point where it’s only really a year or two of our lives that we can remember from our daily perspective.

Over the weekend, on a spontaneous fling, I pulled out seven of my photo albums that have captured memories going all the way back nearly 18 years. Most of the albums are in some jumbled order, but there are always one-off shots scattered in amongst everything that really are just still frozen moments in time saved from being lost. I had forgotten just how wonderful a life I have during the last decade; there were pictures of parties and groups of friends I have made and said goodbye to; scenery; tourist attractions; spaces I had lived in, and past lovers. I had forgotten all about them until recently. But upon seeing the photographs again I was reminded of all these exceptionally happy days I have been lucky enough to have, and of the lucky life I have been blessed with.

I can see now that it is important to keep a perspective on life and realise that there is more to everything than ‘now’. There will be a tomorrow that becomes today, and then soon after that tomorrow will become yesterday, and we will be looking towards a new tomorrow to become today when the sun rises. The buddhists call this concept – Annica – the impermanence of life; all things change. Nothing shows you how true this is more than a photo album.

Padwanna!