December 30, 2015

End-of-Year Leave-Behind Ritual

A successful new year is not just a matter of starting new things, but also of leaving old things behind. This can include physical decluttering, throwing away unneeded materials from a project that was completed or abandoned sometime during the year. It also extends to more spiritual matters, which at the most basic level can mean wanting to stop worrying about problems that were substantially resolved in the old year.

At 1 p.m. ET on New Year’s Eve I will be doing a ritual to leave behind the unwanted problems of 2015, not just my own but those of the community and world as well. If you want me to include any problem you got tired of seeing in 2015, let me know by commenting here or on Twitter using the hashtag #leavebehindin2015.

You’ll find that it can be helpful just to state clearly what you want to leave behind. We don’t want to put much energy into the past, so two or three words is usually enough to identify the problem you want to leave behind in the old year. These are some of the items already on my list:

  • clutter
  • debt
  • unemployment and underemployment
  • illness
  • weather disasters
  • concentration camps
  • following trends
  • legacy software
  • bad habits
  • government corruption
  • laziness and fatigue

In my ritual I will ask that these problems and many others be left behind in the old year for the greater good of the world. If you want to participate while the ritual is taking place, you can do so by cleaning up and throwing away your own unwanted old-year clutter starting at 1 p.m. ET on December 31.

No comments: