2009….Another year, what does one do with that gift. In my opinion, you look back on life and all that it has brought you, you celebrate all the blessings that have been bestowed upon you and pray that you will be granted the wisdom to be a worthy custodian. You face all the things that have held you down and contemplate your willingness in sacrifice that must be present in order to be held down. What exists in your life that needs to change in order to be that worthy custodian? What exists in your life that keeps you from being that courageous conqueror that will stand up and fight against the sacrifice that demands your trepidation?

If 2009 is to be the year of change, then let’s take change and look within. Change will often require you to go in that internal tomb where injuries of the past were bound long ago. Change may ask you to look back. Looking back and reflecting can at times be an awakening to what is possible, but yet obtained. True reflection is often the best teacher in life's classroom.

The question of change can perhaps be answered by pondering and age old question, “what would you do if you knew your days were numbered?”

Would you take the risks that you’ve never quite had the courage to take, seek out your heart’s passion, go after all those aspirations that have plagued your thoughts for so long? Would you give yourself the gift of dreaming again? Maybe those dreams could give you a glimpse of what your aspirations could really become? Could you hold onto that dream in reality or would you let it go deeming it only imaginary? Dreams can give us a view of what we sometimes are incapable of seeing in consciousness.

I’ve heard that life must be lived by looking forward, but is best understood by looking back. Could you summon the courage to enter that internal tomb and face the demons of your past that refuse to provide a name but, wreak havoc on every decision you attempt to make? Can anything hold you down other than what you allow to hold you down? What have you allowed to hold you down? Is it not something to at the very least contemplate?

What is missed because we allow the clouds of our past to define a future which should not be defined yet? What is sacrificed over things that should be tossed to the wind? Is it really safer to hold onto those things thinking that the memory of that pain will assist us in avoiding it in the future? Does holding onto the memory really secure us or does it hold us captive in the remembrance of a pain that must be felt everyday of our lives?

If the answer to the question of change could be found within the answer to what you would do if you knew your days were numbered, then consider that in fact, our days are numbered. No one is promised tomorrow. Why should it take a death sentence such as a terminal disease, knowledge of a loved one’s imminent death, the actual death or even abandonment of a loved one to cast off all the insecurities that the past has implanted within? William James (though often attributed to Marilyn Ferguson) said “The greatest revolution in our generation is that of human beings, who by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.”

In considering change, perhaps we should contemplate if change is inevitable. In Corinthians we are told “behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.” If change is indeed inevitable, will you choose your change?