A Personalised Calendar
Hope's New Year's Day
Hope is a gracious and uncommon fellow. She doesn’t try to fit in the crowd; she prefers different. This character permeates her every deed.
Two years ago, Hope celebrated her twentieth birthday. We’ve been friends on Facebook since 2017. The post for her twentieth was the first I had ever seen for her birthday.
Twenty is definitive and significant in a person’s lifetime. The post read like an epistle and contained some interesting stuff about her. The detail which stood out for me was what New Year’s Day meant to her.
The first day of January is New Year’s Day for many countries around the world, including Nigeria. The eve of New Year’s Day is when many revise their resolutions, prepare to start execution, and pray the hardest (at Cross Over Services) in the closing year.
Hope’s New Year’s Day is her birth day. By extension, the day before is eve for Hope: the day she runs a final assessment of her journey through the previous year; the day she edits her goals for the new year; the day she re-dedicates her life to God; the day she prays to be more hopeful in the years ahead.
I was thrilled by her outlook and reached out via e-mail. I asked why she holds such a unique perspective towards life. The response was an exposition on how a person’s life time is individualistic and how adopting such a personalised calendar repositions her mind towards accomplishing her goals, and saves her from evaluating progress on the scale which everyone else around uses. Ultimately, Hope emphasised that it saved her from needless competition and comparisons.
Like “everyone else”, I wanted to post the first despatch for this year in the first week of the year. I could not. I had issues to attend which demanded more than I had to offer. My challenge was unique to me and wouldn’t allow room for me to post the first despatch. Before succumbing to the pressure of not meeting the general deadline, I recalled my correspondence with Hope. Musing over the content lightened my heart and reminded me that I mustn’t plan my life according to the Gregorian Calendar.
On this note, Happy New Year!
Together, let’s make wonders. Get ready your mails for the year’s despatches. Randomly they may come, yet they weave something beautiful.
Stay hopeful! Here’s one way to:
‘I made my problems jealous by counting my blessings’ _Kiyani Ayinpo Mercie
Bonus; A pro reading tip for you:
‘One reason most books don’t transform us is that we are so eager to read the next chapter, we don’t pause and take the time to seriously consider what we have just read. We rush to the next truth without reflecting on what we have learned’ _Rick Warren.
Beautiful! 😊