A Fresh Start
Release, The Process, Meaning, Influencers, Knowledge, Duty
Happy New Year!
While I had planned to write a year-end review for 5 Big Ideas by today, life had other plans. And, by “other plans,” I mean back-to-back viral infections that left me bedridden for nearly a week. So, that post will have to wait.
In this New Year’s post, I share Big Ideas from others that are sure to serve you in 2025. These ideas transcend mere habits and hacks by getting to the heart of what’s really important—healing, happiness, purpose, growing, and becoming. I wish all of these things for you and more. May this year be your best year yet.
♥ JH
I.
Release
To embrace a new beginning, we must first release what has tethered us to the past.
A helpful exercise on letting go:
As you read this, take a deep breath and, as you exhale, allow all the tension to leave your body. Let your scalp and your forehead and your face relax. Your head does not need to be tense in order for you to read. Let your tongue and your throat and your shoulders relax. You can hold a book (or a smartphone)* with relaxed arms and hands. Do that now. Let your back and your abdomen and your pelvis relax. Let your breathing be at peace as you relax your legs and feet.
Is there a big change in your body since you began the previous paragraph? Notice how much you hold on. If you are doing it with your body, you are doing it with your mind. In this relaxed, comfortable position, say to yourself, “I am willing to let go. I release. I let go. I release all tension. I release all fear. I release all anger. I release all guilt. I release all sadness. I let go of all old limitations. I let go, and I am at peace. I am at peace with myself. I am at peace with the process of life. I am safe.”
Go over this exercise two or three times. Feel the ease of letting go.
Louise L. Hay, You Can Heal Your Life
(addition my own)*
II.
The Process
Happiness is found in the journey, not the destination.
It’s in the anticipation, not the award.
It’s in the chase, not the catch.
It’s in the pursuit, not the pinnacle.
It’s in the striving, not the succeeding.
It’s in the now, not the future.
The Christmas presents once opened are Not So Much Fun as they were while we were in the process of examining, lifting, shaking, thinking about, and opening them. Three hundred sixty-five days later, we try again and find that the same thing has happened. Each time the goal is reached, it becomes Not So Much Fun, and we’re off to reach the next one, then the next one, then the next.
That doesn’t mean that the goals we have don’t count. They do, mostly because they cause us to go through the process and it’s the process that makes us wise, happy, or whatever. If we do things in the wrong sort of way, it makes us miserable, angry, confused, and things like that. The goal has to be right for us, and it has to be beneficial, in order to ensure a beneficial process. But aside from that, it’s really the process that’s important.
Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh
III.
Meaning
In case you’re still looking for a New Year’s resolution, here’s one that’s sure to keep you engaged all year long:
If man no longer finds any meaning in his life, it makes no difference whether he wastes away under a communist or a capitalist regime. Only if he can use his freedom to create something meaningful is it relevant that he should be free. That is why finding the inner meaning of life is more important to the individual than anything else, and why the process of individuation must be given priority.
C.G. Jung, Man and His Symbols
IV.
Influencers
While you can’t control the circumstances you were born into, you can choose who you become. Social capital is scarce, but you can still surround yourself with promising and prosperous perspectives—whether in person, books, videos, or podcasts.
They say, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” But what if those people are Plato, Aristotle, Epictetus, Laozi, and Jesus? What if you spend more time engaging with the wisdom of great minds than you do chit-chatting with the Negative Nancys and the Debbie Downers? Who will you become more like?
Who will you let influence you this year?
We are in the habit of saying that it was not in our power to choose the parents who were allotted to us, that they were given to us by chance. But we can choose whose children we would like to be. There are households of the noblest intellects: choose the one into which you wish to be adopted, and you will inherit not only their name but their property too. Nor will this property need to be guarded meanly or grudgingly: the more it is shared out, the greater it will become.
Seneca, On the Shortness of Life
V.
Knowledge
What do you plan to learn this year? This lifetime?
“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then—to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn—pure science, the only purity there is. You can learn astronomy in a lifetime, natural history in three, literature in six. And then, after you have exhausted a million lifetimes in biology and medicine and theocriticism and geography and history and economics, why, you can start to make a cartwheel out of the appropriate wood, or spend fifty years learning to begin to learn to beat your adversary at fencing. After that you can start again on mathematics until it is time to learn to plough.”
T.H. White, The Once and Future King
5 Big Ideas is a reader-supported publication and a labor of love. As a gesture of gratitude to the paid subscribers who make this publication possible, I include a bonus Big Idea in each issue. Thank you for reading.
+I.
Duty
When you’re feeling particularly unmotivated, remember: You’ve only got one shot at this thing called life.