Biodun Da-Silva: Facing the New Year With Fresh Optimism

“What the new year brings to you will depend a great deal on what you bring to the new year ” – Vern McLellan

The new year is one of the most anticipated times of the year in the history of mankind. A time for renewed hope, new opportunities and resolutions. A time to mentally reset, as well as set new personal goals. As much as we aren’t privy to what a new year holds for us, the newness of the year comes with fresh optimism to face it with courage.

The challenges of life could make it difficult to face the world or its complexities with optimism. This is quite understandable because the world we live in at this point in time tests and stretches every aspect of our lives. We literally don’t know what could go wrong or what news we would wake up to in the morning. The scariest part of it all is that it is becoming our new normal and even though it’s tough adjusting to this new norm, it is fundamentally important that we must, for the sake of our sanity and for our dependents.

True progress happens through courage, having the courage to find solutions to your problems, to face people, to demand change, to walk away from whatever isn’t serving your goals or ambitions. Courage to wake up on a bad day and still press for progress and to smile when all you want to do is break down in tears. Optimism is essential to any achievement and it is a foundation upon which real courage is built.

New year is a new chapter of our lives, careers, ambitions, goals and essentially, optimism helps us trust the new chapter. It keeps us grounded when we can’t see what’s ahead. It reminds us that even if the roads are bumpy and paved with thorns, as long as we keep walking it will lead us to our destination. It trains our mind to see the good side of every situation and find opportunities in difficulties.

Difficulties of life are blessings in disguise not only because they force us to think deeply about who we are, what we want out of life, they make our life meaningful. It strengthens our beliefs when our faith is put to test and reveals our mental toughness. Hard times are what makes life interesting, a life without a challenge to overcome is boring. It is super easy to give up when we lack the faith to proceed but optimism will always find a way to set us back on course. It works when all else fails and it is a powerful tool at our disposal. We must embrace it.

Whatever you do and wherever you are, keep hope alive. Hope is the reason we wake up in the morning to keep pushing. It is the reason why we rise when we fall and why we try again when we fail. We may have encountered setbacks in the previous years, you may have tried to overcome but failed. As long as you still have breath, it’s never too late to recover. All you may need this time could be to try again by being optimistic.

With the changes happening around us, we cannot survive in today’s clime without being positive about our lives, what the future holds coupled with faith in your heart that you can pursue and overtake whatever you set out to achieve. Good times, bad times, success and failures are part of life’s journey.

And as we journey through the new year and beyond, we must bring with us optimism, gratitude, commitment and determination that’ll help us navigate the voyage towards better and meaningful days that are still ahead of us.

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