WE ALL START AT ZERO
Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2020
We are tiny, insignificant, voiceless in this wilderness of masses, but we are alive – we can thrive.
This year can be a great beginning, change-point, triumph over obstacles and competition, when work-ethic trumps nearly everything – a year brimming with kindness and mindfulness for everyone.
I won’t make mistakes I made last year.
Neither will you …
Having a fresh start, making new mistakes – we will stumble and fail many times – but stumbles are fundamental elements of progress in enterprises of any size.
And, today begins a new accounting period.
Everybody who does anything – for wages, for commission, or reward in any form in any enterprise – started today at midnight at zero; and for a few minutes or hours, we are all equal – our output is zero, our income is zero, our work done or products made is zero.
Much like those moments when we are born, we all have a common starting point, $0.00.
Equality ends there…
Moments past midnight, wherever we are, inequality quickly returns.
We are ablest, fittest, fastest, most prominent, best-in-class ~ or we ain’t.
Everyone, no matter how smart, healthy, productive, wealthy, or influential, we might have become – will look around to easily see someone younger, stronger, better, more capable, and successful than we are.
There is strength in this, humbling strength, this commonality we all share.
Most poignantly in the enterprise of me being me, of you being you, and for all of us as a collective community of citizens of a new kind of borderless world of connection.
True, we still have borders, and disconnection is what too many sad people feel – but connection is winning the struggles.
As we all go forward, we will displease some people, we will offend others – sometimes by our actions, sometimes by our very existence. We will thrive in spite of our critics, detractors, and those who ought to support us but don’t.
A year from now, from today, each of us can look in the mirror to see someone ‘one year older,’ or ‘one year more weary,’ or not. A year from now, we can see someone happier, healthier, and better able to serve the world – thriving.
Human capital, and on this front we can all be more equal, is the commitment of one person who bets on themselves, sees themselves as better than they’ve ever been, more capable than they’ve ever been, and more humane than they’ve ever been. That is you, and me, and all of us – right now, today.
A year from now, we’ll have the answer we deserve based on how we apply ourselves to live this year.
That answer shall be the one we deserve, a product of how we work and play, how we treat people, and how we react when circumstances and people treat us less gently.
Have a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2020 – thrive. That is what you are meant to do.
Imagine we are a replacement product on a store shelf, in many ways just the same, but refreshed, energized, and ready to take on the world; how would we tell the world? Our label would surely say, ‘NEW and IMPROVED.’
So, let’s be that. New. Improved.
Reader feedback:
Happy New Year Mark, DA, Toronto, ON
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