At the end of the year, I begin the process of figuring out who I’ve become this year, and what things about myself I want to keep, and what I want to discard. It’s a quietly intense, and rewarding process, filled with disappointments and satisfactions, reflecting on dreams both fulfilled and languishing, memories of simple joys and profound sorrows, regrets and contentments, all the things that make us into who we become year after year.

I feel badly for those who never do this. They lose themselves, and lose their way back to knowing who they are. They have no goals for who they will be. They live only in the moment, and ultimately gain consciousness too late, bewildered at why they so intensely dislike that person called “me.”

I feel badly for those who do this all the time. There is no moment of life for them, no Now to seed their future with good memories. The past completely defines them, steers them towards an unknown future. They fill themselves with regrets, but have no plan to avoid acquiring more. They know themselves quite intimately, but have no idea who they could become.

No, an annual “get-to-know-me-again” is just about right. Listen in as I get to know the “end of 2009″ Me.

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At the end of the year, I begin the process of figuring out who I've become this year, and what things about myself I want to keep, and what I want to discard. It's a quietly intense, and rewarding process, filled with disappointments and satisfactions, reflecting on dreams both fulfilled and languishing, memories of simple joys and profound sorrows, regrets and contentments, all the things that make us into who we become year after year.

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