Empty or Full
Excitement is in the air and if you aren’t on that train, then you are already lagging behind in 2015. On social media, television, radio and every other platform, it’s all about new beginnings and rightly so.
This is literally a second chance for any and everyone to do better and be better. A new chapter in life. Many people believed that they would make it into the New Year but they didn’t. As a matter of fact, I just scrolled through my blackberry messenger feed a day to the end of the year and I saw sudden RIP to two young souls that were taken too soon. It makes you realise how short life is and how it can be taken away without your notice or even your permission. That is why we must always make the most of the time we have now.
It is the season for New Year’s resolutions. What are New Year’s resolutions? As popularly joked about, it is a to-do list for the first week of January. For me, that’s the story of my life and I say so because I had always set unrealistic goals for myself and after the first week, I realised the folly and futility of my humanly impossible list that I just threw it all out of the window. So, in the last couple of years I have paid no heed to that department. However this year is going to be different. I have devised a very simple, straightforward and yet so hard New Year’s resolution which I believe would work for me and it just might work for you as well.
It’s a known fact that there are two types of people in this world. Those that choose to either see a glass half empty or a glass half full. They are the pessimists and the optimists. It’s easy to guess which team anyone would want to play for; in fact, it’s a no-brainer. Everyone wants to view every situation in a positive light but truth is everyone can’t. This is because there are pessimistic agents everywhere looking for optimists who they can rain on their parade by causing stormy clouds in their sunny minds. Sounds ridiculous but it’s true.
What other explanation can be given for a supposedly full-grown adult who disagrees with the opinion of another person, but rather than agreeing to disagree chooses to hurl insults at the other in an attempt to force his or her own views on the other person? Why would a human being tear down another human being with their words or their actions? In the world today, people feed on the vanities of this life thereby creating misleading idiosyncrasies that cause depression, self-condemnation and deep sadness for other unassuming minds.
This is why my first resolution would be to stay true to myself. As they say, ‘There is only one you and no one can do you better than you’. The greatest people in the world were celebrated for being themselves. Had they been pressurised to conform to the ideas of who they ought to be, we probably wouldn’t have heard of them. Embrace your uniqueness, your quirky personality for you do not know where that would take you and finally… #OPTAS which stands for Only Positive Thoughts and Speech.
Yes, there’s nothing wrong with keeping up with the trend of hash tags, helps you remember salient points. Allow nothing and no one rain on your parade this 2015. I have made a promise to myself to allow only positive thinking and speaking which would in turn translate into a positive year for me because I want nothing less than that.
Being happy is a choice, what do you choose?
Happy New Year!
Oluwaseyi Lawal