Write Down To It

Another Chapter In Life

Starting a new chapter in our lives is a beginning like no other beginnings. Waking up in the morning, Sundays, Mondays, the first of the month, and the New Year, are beginnings that have their traditional startups and faithful adherence. These “start” and “stop” type beginnings repeat themselves and we’ve grown to expect them. As long as the natural flow of living is taking place, we can feasibly start over with a new perspective, intent, or desire to change at the forefront of each new beginning cycle.

Starting a new chapter in life differs from the traditional beginnings by presentation. Cycles such as morning, week, or month occur systematically launching a new beginning that we expect and can plan for. We can pick up where we left off with new beginnings, but chapters have the uncanny knack of just happening. We can expect to have a rather smooth transition from hour to hour, day to day, or month to month without pivoting head first into total, utter change. Should that happen, then we’ve just entered a new chapter.

New chapters can pick us up and dump us anywhere. Denoted by suddenness, they are fraught with the unfamiliarity, and characterized by change. Conversely, a new chapter may burst with positivity - the beginning of good things and having a whirlwind effect that defies the mundane. Such sagas of duration leave one feeling quite blissed and blessed. Most often, though, the next chapter tests our ability to “do,’ do what we got to do.

If life akin to a book, a question asked might be, will I read the book of my life? If the answer is no, then simply consider that our lives are not just drama, but also a collection of genres. We’ve lived comedy, romance, soaps, fantasy, adventure, crime, mystery, and satire - a menagerie of words. Life sections chapters permeates them with color, gluts them with emotion and they are brimming with variety resulting in a book that comprises - us. We cannot know what the remaining chapters foretell because change is a given and if embraced we are able to coauthor our lives.

It behooves us to keep reading, even if it starts out slow, turn the page, flip to the next chapter. At least once in a lifetime, if not more, we can rewrite the chapter before it starts or finishes. Think of a reason to change, if need be, and rewrite the next chapter. We can force a chapter, it’s exciting and powerful, but the most astounding chapters are the ones that life creates.

Loss tends to truncate an existing chapter hurling us into a new event that triggers a fast curve towards calamity, the pang of existence threatens, but creative survival techniques dodge, lest one is wholly consumed. Sometimes parting is so difficult that we can’t control the grief. We must not tarry, then, for this is but a chapter and not the book.

New chapters tend to let go of the recent past and set us on a path that requires focusing that the past cannot afford. Oftentimes before we start a new chapter there is a prologue, the lull of information that provides insight. This is a period of anticipation filled with either apprehension, high hopes, or determined calm. We can prepare for a new chapter in our lives with the advent of reprieve, the prologue.

Therefore, the prologue is an advantageous position to be in, especially if the new chapter is gleaned to be somewhat negative or scary. Being in a predicament and knowing change is a-coming allows us to position ourselves prominently to manipulate the outcome. This begs the assistance of effort, perseverance and determination, but they’re generally at our beck and call.

The chapter preceded by a prologue promises nothing but change. Change isn’t part of the process it is the process. Growth is impossible without change, and most of us don’t like doing things that allow us to float and not rise, but we do it anyway – that’s moving. Moving is going somewhere. Somewhere is away from the negative place we may find ourselves temporarily. We need to a moment to prepare for the positive while muddling through the prologue.

If our life’s book has been good and filled with variety, ups and downs, setbacks, forward bursts, stagnation, progress, success and moments of sheer flying, then expect the next chapter to be great. If the prologue is iffy, endeavor to change whatever, that is, do all that you can do, because that’s all you can do. Chances are you’ll run right smack into your life’s plot, right there in the midst of the chapter. Find good in the chapter, after all, it’s your life, and that’s everything.

Pay attention to your life, and no matter what, never put your book down. Keep living your life, keep reading about it, journal it, make changes, keep turning the pages. Expect change, for life is a series of chapters.


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